No space for minister A K Raju's elephant promise

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: An elephant calf might be brought to the city zoo, if the promise of minister for forests, animal husbandry and zoos K. Raju is fulfilled.
Speaking at the valedictory function of the Wildlife Week Celebrations, he said that the proposal was cleared by the forest department. However, the city zoo cannot set aside 1.2 acres – that’s the area stipulated by Central Zoo Authority (CZA) for an elephant. It was because of this norm that the elephant Rajkumar had to be shifted to Konni from the city zoo.

CZA had allowed the zoo to keep the elephant Maheshwari until her last, as she was very old. Now, bringing a new elephant calf would mean that the zoo would need to go for the approval of CZA. Zoo superintendent Anilkumar T.V. said that there is a big possibility of CZA giving its nod. “When the norms came out, Thiurvananthapuram had immediately taken measures to comply, but many other zoos in the country did not. So far CZA has not taken any action on this. So perhaps they might be ready to relax the norms for us.”

The minister said that the calf elephant will be brought to the zoo as it is “weak and in need of attention.” Once it revives it will be released into the wild, he said. At the function, the minister was ambiguous about where the elephant would come from. The minister also said that the zoo will soon be receiving white lion, jaguar and zebra as a gift from an animal lovers’ organisation.

He said that a plan to bring two Himalayan bears were also in the pipeline, but was stalled as railway was yet to give its approval to transfer the animals in a wagon. The minister said that since the zoo functions with just one veterinary surgeon, the government is considering to make arrangements to increase the number of doctors. However he did not specify whether a vacancy will be created.