Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram   

Blackbuck get new enclosure

They have been shifted to the new pseudo-habitat in a day-long operation

BREATHING SPACE: Blackbuck in the new enclosure built in the city zoo.

After remaining squeezed in a tiny enclosure for years together, blackbuck in the city zoo now have a large enclosure all for themselves.

The 32 animals were transported in a day-long operation last week to the new pseudo-habitat enclosure that shares a dry moat with the open enclosure for the sambar deer.

Initially, the blackbuck were housed in an enclosure adjacent to the old exit point of the zoo.

This enclosure did not have any vegetation, proper shade or a proper animal house inside. This meant that in addition to being cramped for space, the blackbuck had to endure the scorching sun and chilling rain throughout the year.

Once the construction of the new enclosure was over, animal keepers set up a `corridor' made of wire mesh and cloth to allow the blackbuck to walk from the old enclosure to the new one that was about 250 metres away.

The corridor, two metres wide and two metres high, was covered from the top to prevent the animals escaping. "The blackbuck are very excitable by nature and so tranquillising them was out of the question. So was physically catching them. So we decided that patience was the best option," said S. Abu, zoo superintendent.

And wait the zoo staff did; from 9.30 a.m. to 5 p.m. when the last blackbuck sauntered across to the new enclosure.

According to Mr. Abu, the first thing that the blackbuck did in the new enclosure was to feed ravenously on the grass that was specially planted inside. So much so that a good portion of the feed that the zoo gives the animals is going waste.

Sambar deer dead

A male sambar deer died in the zoo on Monday evening. According to zoo veterinarian C.S. Jayakumar, it sustained a serious head injury during fighting among male deer inside the sambar enclosure.

The carcass was buried after a post-mortem examination, he added.

G. Mahadevan

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