City welcomes 2 tigers; Mumbaiites to get peek after a month

Officials at the Veermata Jijabai Bhosale Udyan (Byculla zoo) welcomed a pair of Bengal tigers on Wednesday night. Mumbaiites however, would have to wait for a month

Officials at the Veermata Jijabai Bhosale Udyan (Byculla zoo) welcomed a pair of Bengal tigers on Wednesday night. Mumbaiites however, would have to wait for a month before they get to view the tigers, a male and a female, brought from the Siddharth Zoo in Aurangabad.

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The two captive tigers – four-year-old Shakti and six-year-old Karishma, were brought in exchange for two pairs of spotted deers and painted storks from the Aurangabad zoo.

While Shakti is dominant, Karishma is aggressive, said zoo officials. Since the tigers have been bred in captivity, they are accustomed to human presence around them.

An official from the zoo said, “The tigers are healthy and have been kept under observation. They are being given buffalo or chicken meat for meals.”

The Byculla zoo did not have tigers in its enclosure for more than a decade. The Bengal tigers will be housed in a quarantined area for a month, where they will undergo various tests to check for infections or pre-medical conditions, before they are put out on public display.

The zoo’s exchange programme is part of its expansion plan, in which it plans to bring more exotic animals to the city, including a pair of Asiatic lions from Gujarat.

Last year, the zoo received two leopards – a two-year-old male and a three-year-old female – from the Pilikula Zoo in Mangaluru.

The Byculla zoo, spread across 53 acres, was first set up as the Western India Horticulture Society and was later established as a zoo in 1862. Currently, it has more than 300 animals, including the seven Humboldt penguins housed at an incubation centre.