An expert committee will decide on translocating deer from the Deer Park at Hill Palace Museum by mid August.
The committee, with members from the Kerala Forest Department, Kerala Veterinary and Animal Sciences University, Wayanad, Wildlife Trust of India, will meet in mid August. The animals would have to be translocated from Thripunithura following a directive from the Central Zoo Authority, said an official.
The animals will have to be kept under observation for some time before deciding whether to release them to the wild. Detailed guidelines were in place for the translocation and release of the animals, kept in captivity, to the wild, he said.
Brij Kishore Gupta, the Evaluation and Monitoring Officer of the Authority, had recommended in 2012 that the animals should be sterilised, or the male and female deer should be segregated and kept in separate enclosures for preventing the population increase.
The official also suggested the authorities to explore the possibility of shifting the animals to some zoos set up legally, or releasing them into the wild.
There are nearly 100 spotted deer and 30 sambar in the deer enclosure. It requires around Rs. 1.5 lakh a month for providing feed to the animals. The proposal for sterilising the animals was dropped and translocation was being considered, said K.R. Sona, Registrar of the Centre for Heritage Studies, which is managing the Palace Museum.
Forest officials said the animals would be tranquilised and translocated to some destinations without causing much harm to them. Earlier, 30 spotted deer were tranquilised and shifted to the wildlife rehabilitation centre at Kaprikad from Kodanad safely, he said.
