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Elusive snow leopards to prowl at Nainital zoo
Nainital zoo will get a pair of snow leopards this year, bringing an elusive animal close to visitors to one of Uttarakhand’s most popular tourist destinations.
Nainital zoo will get a pair of snow leopards this year, bringing an elusive animal close to visitors to one of Uttarakhand’s most popular tourist destinations.
More than three lakh tourists visit the zoo annually and the management of the Pt Govind Ballabh Pant High Altitude Zoo hope that the snow leopards will become major attractions like the markhor, the national animal of Pakistan which was added to the exhibits last year.
“We will be bringing the snow leopard couple by the coming winters from Darjeeling,” zoo director Tejaswini Patil told HT.
Spread across 4.693 hectares, the zoo houses several species of exotic animals and birds including a pair of red panda and Himalayan tahr, both on the list of globally endangered animals.
The director, however, admitted that the zoo has an excess population of leopards. With 17 leopards at present, the authorities have to use enclosures meant for tigers to house leopards.
Rescued and man-eater leopards are also brought at the zoo.
“The leopard population here is definitely high and once we receive a male tiger, it will be difficult for us to accommodate the leopards as they are kept in the enclosures meant for tigers,” Patil added.
The zoo is also home to the Himalayan palm civet, sambhar, barking deer, serow, Himalayan yellow throated martin, goral, Himalayan black bear, Japanese macaque and the Tibetan wolf.
The higher reaches of Uttarakhand is a natural habitat of the snow leopard, classified as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
Uttarakhand is among five states in India which have a snow leopard population besides Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh.
During a trans-Himalayan survey conducted in June 2015, 39 snow leopards were detected in the state.
