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New leopard tests zoo men?s skills
WITHIN TWO years the zoo authorities have a testing task ahead once again. They have to use all their skills to tame one of the most ferocious leopards sent from Lucknow zoo. It was only last year that the zoo was given a wild and stubborn rhinoceros for training him in the art of living in an enclosure.
WITHIN TWO years the zoo authorities have a testing task ahead once again. They have to use all their skills to tame one of the most ferocious leopards sent from Lucknow zoo. It was only last year that the zoo was given a wild and stubborn rhinoceros for training him in the art of living in an enclosure.
This time the animal is a leopard which was caught by the zoo veterinary Dr U Shukla from Sandi village in Hardoi on May 20, putting his own life at great risk.
According to zoo director R Hemant Kumar, while attempting to tranquilize the ferocious leopard, Dr Shukla had received serious abdominal injuries. However, undeterred by this, Dr Shukla succeeded in trapping the wild animal and brought it to Lucknow zoo where it was kept for about 18 days. Later it was decided by the senior officials to send the animal to Kanpur zoo.
The animal was shifted here on June 8. “It is a highly wild and unmanageable animal. It has no regard for other animals living in the enclosures. It growls wildly on seeing them as if it will tear them to pieces if it was allowed to live with them,” said the director.
The leopard was put in one of the indoor patient wards at the animal hospital. The ward has a room, an open courtyard and an iron fencing all around it.
Kumar said the leopard would have to be kept in the indoor patients ward for about seven months till it showed signs of improvement in its nature. He said the animal was very young, full of energy and wild in nature. It could neither be left in the forest nor it could be kept in the regular enclosure. The safest place for it was the hospital ward, he added.
Kumar said every animal was very sensitive to its surroundings and takes time in adjusting in a new place. On the first day the leopard did not eat full meal. In the night too it avoided taking meals. Perhaps it would repeat this process till it was convinced that it had no option but to live in the enclosure. The day it learnt this lesson it would change its behaviour and become civilized and then could be kept with other leopards.
However, Kumar said there were seven more leopards in the zoo and addition of this new one would put heavy finical burden on the existing budget. This meant Rs 116 per day on four kilograms of bufflow meat to be served to the leopard. Presently, the zoo had to spend over Rs 2,57,661 per annum on seven leopards.
