Bhavani cuts a lonely picture. In its enclosure at the city zoo, the Himalayan black bear, over 15 years old, has been leading a solitary life for years.
The zoo had set in motion plans to bring two more Himalayan black bears from Nagaland last year, but it has failed to materialise, leaving the sedate Bhavani staring at some more time alone.
With no one to bond with, her only connect is with her keepers. She is a quiet one, but once the climate changes in December, she seems to withdraw into herself all the more, says keepers Radhakrishnan Nair and Biju.
Crowds do not bother her, and she seems content to laze around in the front portion of the enclosure, her antics drawing people in droves. Now that the rains are here, she is happy to sit out and get wet, though she continues to get her quota of ice cubes, frozen together with watermelon.
In Bhavani, there is none of the impatience that her neighbours the sloth bears display. She is content to wait till the shutters to the animal house open, walking in briskly to sniff the fare laid out, before settling down with the fruits – watermelon, grapes, cucumbers, and groundnuts.
Sindhu the zebra and Jadu the rhino are some of the other animals who are bereft of the company of the other sex.
Zebras move in herds, but the sight of Sindhu, alone in her expansive enclosure, rarely fails to evoke compassion among visitors. There is no one for her to graze with or rub against.
“In a house, if there is one more person to be with and support, that is of great relief. Some company at the fag end of her life would probably have been of some solace to her,” her keeper Rajendran says. Suffering from laminitis, a diet of fruits and two different types of grass and daily intake of medicines is what keeps the elderly zebra going.
Deer for company
Jadu the rhino too seems to be living out his life alone, if one does not count the spotted deer who share its enclosure. He can mostly be spotted immersed in water, with no one to give him company, even as the hippos in an enclosure nearby cut a happy picture. He stirs when his keepers call out to him, but when he is dozing, there’s no budging him, how much ever they call.
Jadu arrived at the zoo in 1993, and has been alone since the death of Rita, a female hippo, who was gored to death by Ramu, another hippo, in 2004. Ramu later died after falling ill. Among birds too, there are a few solitary creatures – the Bengal vulture, the Cinereous vulture, and the sea eagle.
