As mercury soars, tigers chill out at national park; concerned vets and staff care for big cats

MUMBAI: When the mercury rises in Washington DC, tigers at the US National Zoo munch on frozen blocks of blood or ‘bloodsicles’.
At Australia Zoo, tiger cubs bathe in an artificial waterfall and lick ice-cream cones. Karachi Zoo allowed the big cats to curl up alongside blocks of ice during a deadly heat wave in 2015.
Last month, as temperatures soared to 41 degrees Celsius in Mumbai, Sanjay Gandhi National Park’s tigers and leopards weren’t fed ‘bloodsicles’ or ice-cream cones, but measures were in place to protect them from heat stress.
For instance, last week, eight-year-old Yash—a laidback tiger who has grown up in captivity—was given a cool shower through the bars of a cage after spending the morning lolling in a shallow pool. “We have put thermometers in the shelter. Whenever the temperature goes above 35 degrees, all the tigers are sprayed with water,” says SGNP veterinarian Shailesh Pethe. “We also change the water regularly because when animals hear the sound of water falling, they are tempted to drink.” He says the animals are placed in the 50-hectare safari display area on a rotational basis so that they get more time to rest in the shelter during the summer months. “The shelter is completely shaded,” explains Pethe, “but the display area is partly shaded and partly open to the sun.”
To combat this direct exposure to sunlight, all animals returning from the safari display area are given a cold shower. SGNP has seven tigers— three males and four females. Besides Yash, there’s Anand, Bijli, Laxmi, Basanti, Bajirao and Mastani. Contrary to popular opinion, the film ‘Bajirao Mastani’ didn’t inspire two of the tigers’ names. “These aren’t filmy names,” says Pethe. “They are named according to their characters.”
Bijli, for instance, was very aggressive when she arrived, and Mastani, which means ‘cheerfully unconcerned”, was named because of her relaxed attitude. In fact, 18-year-old ‘Bajirao’—the old man of the streak—is far older than Mastani and arrived here long before she did. SGNP also has around 10 leopards in its rescue centres that need to be made comfortable during the summer.
They are rescues—not meant for display— whose injuries prevent them from being returned to the wild or who arrived as cubs and so never learned to fend for themselves. “We have fans in their enclosure through which we spray water,” explains park director Anwar Ahmed. “We also keep the ground wet and have put in some wooden planks where they can relax without being bothered by the heat rising from the cement floor.” The park also has three lions, but besides keeping them in the shade during the summer, no other measure needs to be taken.