Alipore Zoo brings in new animals from Indira Gandhi Zoological Park

Kolkata: To augment its breeding stock and woo the visitors, the Alipore Zoological Garden has brought a number of animals through an exchange programme with Indira Gandhi Zoological Park (IGZP), Visakhapatnam.

“We have brought one white coloured Bengal Tiger, one pair each of ring- tailed lemur, grey wolves, striped hyena, black swan and five wild dogs and three hog deer. A pair of sloth bears will also come later,” Subhankar Sengupta, director of Alipore Zoo said.

The Alipore Zoo has handed over a pair of northern giraffes, a pair of scarlet macaw and two pairs of water monitor lizards to IGZP, Visakhapatnam in exchange for the animals received.

An Alipore Zoo official said that six fully air-conditioned special animal ambulances were used to bring the animals from Visakhapatnam while the giraffes were sent in a low bed trailer in specially-designed cages. The animals, after thorough monitoring of their health conditions, were released in their enclosures for visitors on Thursday. With the introduction of one more white-coloured Bengal Tiger, the total number of such tigers at the zoo is now three.

The breeding of lemurs will be a reality with the arrival of the ring-tailed lemur duo. The existing two lemurs are of separate species so breeding is an impossible proposition. The pair of grey wolves, striped hyena, black swan are also expected to augment the zoo’s breeding stock. To date, there was one wolf and a swan in the zoo. “We will be bringing a pair of sloth bears through which breeding will be done. There are already two male sloth bears and two male Himalayan black bears,” the zoo official said. The Alipore Zoo has recently done successful breeding of fishing cats, dancing deer, painted stork, iguana, monitor lizard to name a few.