Monday 6 May 2013

Love-lorn tiger enters zoo

AFP

May have travelled over 100 km in quest of mate

A lonely male tiger that left the jungle and entered a zoo in Nandankanan Zoological Park in Odisha in quest of a mate has been trapped, an official of the state-run park said.

"It seems to have strayed into the zoo attracted by a tigress," Sudarshan Panda, director of the Nandankanan Zoological Park near Bhubaneswar, capital of the eastern state of Orissa.

Panda said foresters kept a lookout for the animal, which had travelled from a protected state forest some 100 kilometres from the zoo and roamed around the facility last weekend. The tiger was captured and is now in the tiger safari area, which has been temporarily closed to visitors due to the presence of the wild cat.

The Nandankanan zoological park has a large number of white tigers as well.

India is home to half of the world's rapidly shrinking wild tiger population and has been struggling to halt the big cat's decline in the face of poachers, international smuggling networks and loss of habitat.

The country has seen its tiger population plummet from an estimated 40,000 animals in 1947, when it gained independence, to just 1,706 in 2011.

Source: http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-in-school/lovelorn-tiger-enters-zoo/article4687447.ece

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