Winter care: Heaters, straw beds, special diets for animals in Patna zoo

Patna: As temperatures in Patna dipped to 10 degrees Celsius, authorities at the Sanjay Gandhi Biological Park, commonly known as Patna Zoo, are intensifying efforts to protect its diverse animal inhabitants from the cold.

Arrangements include setting up of heaters in enclosures, fluorescent and UV lights in the reptile section, including for snakes, to help regulate temperatures effectively. Other measures are spreading paddy straw for insulation in various night houses and providing rich diets with immunity-boosting foods, such as Chyawanprash for primates—monkeys, langurs, chimpanzees, lion-tailed macaques, and hoolock gibbons, and honey and sugarcane for bears.

Elephants, which handle cold naturally well, receive daily massages with about 1.5 to 2 litres of mustard oil. Their diets are adequately supplemented with sugarcane, soybeans, seasonal fruits, and boiled rice.

Zoo director Hemant Patil told this reporter that reptile species such as pythons, cobras, vipers, and dhamins have blankets spread on the floor of their cells. “In addition, UV lights have been installed to maintain a normal temperature in their cells. This year, we also placed heating pads in their cells to keep them warm. For herbivorous animals, straw beds have been built in their enclosure sheds, and fencing has been done with straw and bamboo to protect them from the cold winds,” he said.

“The animals are receiving calcium and multivitamin supplements. As usual, the diets of carnivorous animals have been increased. Apart from Chyawanprash, primates receive honey, jaggery pudding, amla jam, and seasonal fruits. Bears are being provided with seasonal fruits, honey, eggs, jaggery pudding, sugarcane, and other seasonal fruits,” the director added.

To protect against the cold wave, the bird enclosures have been fenced with plastic sheets and nets to maintain adequate lighting and ventilation. Straw has been spread in the night houses and exhibit areas of the zebra and giraffe enclosures to protect them from the cold wave.

Patil further said to keep primates warm, blankets have been given to them in their enclosures along with oil heaters. Heaters have also been installed in the cells of carnivorous animals.

The animal keepers said that during the intense cold, they keep the animals in their cells and night houses and avoid putting them on display for the public.

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