CZA probes zoo ‘missing' animal records, transfers
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Kolkata: The Central Zoo Authority (CZA) has sent a three-member team to the Zoological Garden, Alipore, to look into serious allegations of gross mismatch in its wildlife inventory and carry out an audit of animals at the zoo.
Citizens' collective Save Wild Animals of Zoo and Our Nature (Swazon) has flagged the huge discrepancy of over 300 missing animals from the inventory recorded in the last day of 2023-24 and the first day of 2024-25 at Alipore zoo.
The team will also go through records of some animals transfers from the facility. At least 51 animals were transferred from the zoo to a facility in western India in 2023-24 — at the very beginning of the fiscal, April 2, 2023.
During the FY, 21 animals and birds were transferred to North Bengal Wild Animals Park near Siliguri, six to Junglemahala zoo in Jhargram, against two tigers and five birds and animals from the facilities in Siliguri and Jhargram, respectively.
But the zoo annual report of 2023-24 is mum on the purpose of transfers to the western India facility.
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The CZA team will not only go through this year's inventory but also look into past inventory.
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Also on radar is large number of deaths that officials allegedly claimed had happened during the year and their inability to conduct autopsy as the bodies had decomposed. Swazon questioned how so many animals can decompose at a zoo where keepers are assigned to all cages.
Asked if transfer of 51 animals were done under any exchange programme, Tapas Das, ex-zoo director, only said: "We need to check CZA documents." Central Zoo Authority member secretary Clement Ben said: "I cannot comment as our team is in Kolkata to probe the matter.
They will submit a report soon."
"Any transfer of zoo animals has to have a specific purpose, including exchange or dispersal of surplus stock. In this case, it does not appear entirely clear what the purpose of transfer was and if this rationale was made transparently public at the time," said Shubhobroto Ghosh of World Animal Protection in India. Ex-member secretary of CZA, Sanjay Shukla, said exchange is always not mandatory for such transfer/acquisition.
"It is to be seen if donor zoo has some animals in excess and if these animals are missing from inventory of recipient zoo. In such a case transfer can happen without any exchange and without disturbing breeding pairs at donor zoo," he added.
Animals in the lot of 51 are four fishing cats, one brow-antlered deer, one jungle cat, two marsh crocodiles, two Indian munjtac, three water monitor lizards, nine rock pythons, nine painted storks and 20 star tortoises.
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