Chennai: A male giraffe at Vandalur zoo, pelted by stones to enter its cage by an animal keeper, jumped into a slope and died in the impact on Thursday night. Vandalur zoo officials who remained tight-lipped performed a hushed up ‘autopsy’ and buried the critically endangered animal on Friday.
According to confidential zoo insiders, the senior animal keeper trained to handle giraffe was on leave when the incident happened. On Thursday the animal keepers of the adjacent elephant enclosure found the deceased giraffe Raguman loitering in the open enclosure without entering its caged shed. To shoo away the animal the elephant trainers (kavadi) threw stones and howled at the hapless animal. Sensing trouble the giraffe ran helter-skelter in the moat and finally slipped into slope filled with water.
The staff alerted the zoo officials and initially, they tried to pull the animal out using rope and rubber tubes, but as the efforts failed a crane was brought in and then the animal was lifted using the hydraulic machine. But by then the 20-year-old animal had died.
However, zoo officials denied the theory and maintained that the animal died due to asphyxia and regurgitation (lack of digestion due to stress). The official statement failed to brief what triggered asphyxia and regurgitation. The statement also said that the animal was brought from Alipore Zoo, West Bengal in 1998.
The zoo now has another female giraffe, which is 22-year-old and has been missing its companion since last night. Both the animals were healthy until the incident, sources said.
“We will soon procure a pair of giraffe through Central Zoo Authority and it is a big loss to the zoo,” a zoo official said denying the controversy around the giraffe death.
