Bhubaneswar: Odisha’s Nandankanan Zoo could be the first of its kind to initiate rewilding of captive tigers, if all goes as per plan, zoo’s director Manoj Nair said Friday on International Tiger Day.
Rewilding is the process of teaching animals born in captivity how to live in their natural habitat.
“Nandankanan will soon perform a study on the tigers’ genetic well-being in collaboration with Bangalore’s NCBS (National Centre for Biological Sciences). The results of the research on successful breeding for the rewilding process will be available six months to a year after it has begun,” Nair said.
Nair further informed us that there is a wild tiger name ‘Nandan’ in the zoo. “Our goal is to spread his breed to other tigers.”
If all goes according to plan, Nair noted, Nandankanan Zoo will be the first one to successfully rewild tigers.
PCCF Sashi Paul also expressed confidence that the state’s tiger population would grow over the next several years. He informed that there are 26 tigers at the zoo. While 16 of them are of the common breed, three and seven, respectively, are black and white.
Meanwhile, the zoo managers rewarded the guards of the zoo and gave chickens to the big cats on occasion of International Tiger Day.
PNN