|
 A chance meeting with a friend on Saturday night
at Luz Corner had us planning a trip to Vandalur Zoo, on the outskirts of
Chennai.
Arriving at 11.30 AM, we joined the long ticket-queue (the board says, Adults Rs.5;
Children Rs.5 in English whereas the Tamil version clarified our doubt, that for children
below 5, entry was free!). The cave-like entrance albeit looks a little cinema-set-like. A
further walk inside tree-lined tar-topped paths and you are on. The place is real woody,
green with lots of trees around. And if not for the Sunday crowds, you could feel like
little Red Riding Hood in the forest.
We picked up some leaflets from the info
counters from which we learnt some history – that Madras has the distinction of
having the first zoo in India as early as 1855. This was shifted to the Vandalur Reserve
Forest in 1979 by the Tamilnadu Forest Department. The zoo is spread over a whopping 510
ha. dry evergreen forests with gentle undulating terrain open wet and dryland type
enclosures, specially developed to simulate natural environment for the animals. After the
zoo was inaugurated in 1985, it has undergone a lot of improvement, with new animals
making their home and breeding and more and more features like the Jurassic Park,
Nocturnal section, reptile section, aquarium, etc.
Now there are as many as 81 enclosures
– 6 types of deer from barking deer, sambar, blackbuck, Nilgai,
Sangai, Hog deer, a
number of monkey species from Nilgiri Langur to the endangered Lion-tailed Macaque,
Babboon, Hanuman Langur and Leaf-capped Langur, wolf, jackal, hyena, llama, otter, an
aviary specially for Vedantangal birds and another for Point Calimere ones, then  the
higher carnivores like the sleek and beautiful tiger, the majestic lion (one of the zoo
staff who brought the lion’s lunch was calling, it "naaye, vandu saapidu (dog,
come and eat! I am sure the lion must have felt suitably insulted) panther, jaguar, etc.
to the elephants, giraffes and camels.
Apart from the range of animal life,
there’s plenty of environment info to be picked up by everybody. Near every
enclosure, there are stone boards talking about the zoological name, its feeding, mating
and breeding
|
habits and seasons apart from the place where it is endemic. And trees have
placards with their botanical names and other details.
A library is open to
public on Mondays and Fridays. The zoo is open 6 days a week from 9-6 PM
though ticket sales close an hour earlier, Tuesday being a holiday. For
those of you who may find the long trek inside a bit arduous, you can
ride on the battery vehicles plying inside, for a fee. Environmental
awareness and education form an integral part of the zoo’s activities.
They have launced education programmes for students (pre-primary,
primary and higher secondary and college) and teachers and other
visitors. And now they are having a zoo volunteer program in which
anyone who wants to work inside the place can apply.
Apart from this, members of the `Student
zoo club’ get valuable experience as they get exposed to adventure while getting
educated about wildlife management, conservation, animal behaviour, their habitats,
ecosystems, evolution, animal adaptations, reproduction, nutrition,
animal housing and husbandry. The membership is open for 2 years for which they also get a
certificate. The club currently has about 150 members.
Interestingly, of the more than 8 lakh
visitors to the zoo every year, about 3 lakh are students. Though I noticed that the `star
tortoise’ enclosure had almost every visitor, young and old, poking the poor
creatures with sticks and twigs (now why don’t they realise that it hurts them?).
Complaining to the Zoo Director, Krishnakumar, came reassurances that they are in the
process of pulling down that enclosure, to make it safe for the tortoises. He also felt
that people need more eco-awareness and education. He says that every day, the zoo staff
fish out as many as 50 coins thrown inside the seal’s transparent glass tank by
ignorant visitors (when did the seal need money?) to make the animal appear.
On this day, lets pledge ourselves to be kind
to animals, eco-friendly and preserve whatever is left of nature’s awesome
beauty, as a tribute to Mother Earth. Think of how poor our lives will be without
flora and fauna…before its too late and we lose the rest…
|
