The Hindu : Kerala / Thiruvananthapuram News : City zoo reopens

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jul 25, 2007
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Kerala

Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram

City zoo reopens

Staff Reporter

One more blackbuck dies of FMD, raising safety concerns

Photo: C. Ratheesh Kumar

Zooming in: A visitor trains his camera lens on a pair of tigers at the Thiruvananthapuram zoo.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Hours before the city zoo reopened its doors to visitors on Tuesday it lost another blackbuck to the Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD).

With this the number of animals that succumbed to the FMD virus has risen to 23. Five to seven more blackbucks are believed to be infected in addition to the cape buffalo. The 48-acre facility had been closed since July 8. The technical committee set up to help zoo authorities manage the FMD situation inspected the campus on Sunday morning and recommended that the facility be reopened.

Visitors walked through a ‘foot dip’ filled with potassium permanganate solution before entering and exiting the zoo premises. This facility, which will prevent the FMD virus’s entry into the zoo through the footwear of visitors, was installed on the recommendation of the technical committee.

Enclosures housing the deer, the cape buffalo and the one that housed the Mithun have been fenced off and will not be accessible to visitors. Zoo director Elcy George said here on Tuesday that all possible precautions were being taken to prevent the spread of the FMD virus. A special facility for disinfecting the tyres of the vehicles going in and coming out of the zoo compound will soon be set up, she said.

Recommendations

Even though the technical committee recommended the reopening of the zoo based on the belief that the FMD virus is on the wane, there is widespread concern among zoo staff that the influx of a large number of visitors and the failure of the zoo authorities to fully implement the sanitary measures suggested by the technical committee and by the two-member committee from the Southern Regional Disease Diagnostic Laboratories (SRDDL), Bangalore, could lead to a second round of FMD infections and deaths.

One crucial recommendation of the SRDDL committee was that zoo staff be given dedicated work clothes and that the staff shower and disinfect themselves before and after handling animals susceptible to FMD. “At present, we are given one uniform set. The last time we were given soap was give months ago. After the recent deaths we were supposed to get gum boots; we are yet to get them,” an animal keeper told The Hindu on Tuesday.

Fodder

The contract that the zoo has given for the daily supply of fodder for the herbivores ends only in March next. Even now the zoo has no means of verifying where the cut grass comes from.

A zoo official pointed out that the fodder was not fumigated or disinfected after being brought to the zoo. Another crucial finding of the SRDDL committee was that water that drains off from the zoo’s garden section finds its way into the moats and enclosures and that the animals even had access to that water. The technical committee too suggested the water be diverted away from the enclosures. As on Tuesday the zoo is yet to begin work on this. So, did the authorities have to reopen the zoo this fast, given that the FMD virus can remain inside the animals for close to three months? “They could have waited for at least a week more. In this case, it is better to be safe than sorry,” a zoo official said.

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