Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram   

Work on zoo enclosures slow

— Photo: S. Mahinsha

Long hibernation: The snake house at the city zoo shows no sign of getting completed.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The impasse over the construction of new animal enclosures continues at the city zoo, scheduled to be reopened to visitors on September 5.

Conceived as part of the ongoing zoo modernisation scheme, the enclosures for the snakes, otters, giraffes, zebra, ostrich, emu and crocodiles are yet to be completed. The new pseudo-habitat enclosure for the cape buffalo remains firmly on the drawing boards.

The snake house—originally expected to cost Rs.28 lakhs—was thought of as a pseudo-habitat enclosure for the 11 species of snake at the zoo. Each cubicle inside the house will have an area of about 100 sq.ft. The king cobra and the python will have cubicles having twice this area. The entrance to the snake house sports the hood of a snake; the entire structure is designed to look like the body of a snake.

Inside each cubicle, the ‘climate’ would be controlled. There would also be pebbles, cacti, and various kinds of shrubs, so that the snake can be given a ‘feel’ of its natural habitat.

Though the structure of the 40 meter long and 6 meter wide snake house has been completed, work on the cubicles is not yet over. The contractor is reported to have stopped all work on the snake house after a stand-off with the zoo authorities over payment.

The plight of the zoo’s giraffes is worse. In their natural habitat they are used to wide open landscapes. At the zoo, the two giraffes are now confined to a small plot of land as the zoo authorities debate how to go ahead with the construction of a pseudo-habitat enclosure for these towering animals. Nearby, the lone female zebra is also waiting to shift to a new enclosure.

The pit-like enclosure that once housed the hippos is being re-designed to house the otters. Even though work on this structure started two years ago, the enclosure is not yet ready. “In each case, the zoo authorities blame the contractor and the contractor says the zoo authorities are to blame. No one seems to be in a hurry to wrap up the zoo’s modernisation project,” a zoo employee said here.

The zoo director Elcy George said here that the Zoo Improvement Committeee that met on Monday has decided to explore ways to speed up the work on these enclosures. The delay in the completion of the enclosures conceived as part of the zoo modernisation scheme is also proving to be a drain on the zoo’s finances as all these schemes have now overshot their initial estimates to a good extent.

Meantime, the zoo is also preparing to bring over new animals. While a king cobra is expected to be brought over shortly from Malampuzha, a pair of white tigers would be brought over from Delhi in exchange for a pair of lion-tailed macaques. A pair of hippos and two tigers will be given to the Ranchi zoo in exchange for three Himalayan black bears and four hyenas.

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