Zoo animals fall prey to Hudhud

VISAKHAPATNAM: The sprawling 625 acre Indira Gandhi Zoolo gical Park (IGZP), which used to be one of the most green and beautiful haunts in the city till Saturday, has virtually turned into a graveyard, thanks to cyclone Hudhud.
The zoo, where the roar of wild animals, chirps of birds and the soothing greenery used to welcome visitors, is today in a shambles, with the premises strewn with hundreds of dried, uprooted trees and the animal day enclosures completely destroyed.
Zoo authorities said that while estimates of losses are yet to be made, the ecological loss is irreplaceable and it may take another six months for the zoo to throw open its doors for visitors. "The financial losses will definitely run into several crores of rupees, but the ecological loss can never be restored. While some animals succumbed to the fury of the cyclone, a few have escaped," said an IGZP official.
Even as around 600 metres of the zoo compound wall has collapsed, three pythons and one wild cat are missing and are feared to have escaped. All trees and compound walls of the Kambalakonda Reserve Forest as well as the Animal Rescue Centre opposite the zoo have also been destroyed due to the cyclone.
Elaborating on the losses, zoo curator G Ramalingam said, "There were at least 50,000-80,000 trees spread across 625 acres, all of which have been destroyed. Only a satellite image can give a rough estimate, which we will now try to get. The lovely aquarium has been smashed, the butterfly park destroyed and most of the butterflies are nowhere in sight. With all the trees destroyed, hundreds of birds, bees, insects too have died or gone away. All of them have lost their natural habitat. Four black bucks, one barking deer, three antelopes and three painted storks have died."
While most of the animals are now in their night crawls, the zoo curator said that big animals, especially primates and rhinoceros, need to be released in their day enclosures soon as it's difficult for them to remain in the cramped night shelters for long.
"Clearing the debris, enclosures and trees is our first priority, but we have a dearth of labourers since the entire city needs their service and even the labourers themselves have been affected by the cy clone. We have our own pumps besides a tanker of municipal water daily, so we don't have a water crisis. Food is also being supplied by contractors, but still the animals are scared and are yet to adapt to this `changed' environment," said Ramalingam.
This apart, the cyclone has also stalled the arrival of new animals like the 21 baboons that were supposed to arrive from Germany. The IZGP is one of the three zoo parks in the two states, the other two being in Hyderabad and Tirupati. IGZP, with 860 animals belonging to 95 species, is considered one of the biggest zoos in a natural setting in the country. The zoo used to draw 3,000-4,000 visitors per day and 6,000-8,000 on the weekends, earning an average revenue of Rs 40,000-50,000 per day.
Retired curator from Tirupati zoo, A Parthasarathy, and divisional forest officer (DFO, Social Forestry), Vizianagaram, Ch Suryanarayana, are now at the zoo to take stalk of situation and lend a helping hand in the restoration work. Rudra Prasanna Mahapatra, assistant manager, Wildlife Trust of India, who came to inspect the losses, said: "We are sending our emergency relief network to help restore the zoo as soon as possible."