Billed as the only zoo in India located amidst natural settings, with hills acting as a barrier on two sides, a stream right at the centre, and the blue waters of the sea forming the backdrop on the other, the Indira Gandhi Zoological Park is poised for further expansion.
The sprawling 625-acre extent of the zoo has been the favourite haunt of children, animal-lovers, and fun-lovers, and the most-visited places during ‘Karteeka Maasam’ (picnic season) for several decades.
The very severe cyclone Hudhud had devastated the zoo, felling thousands of trees and destroying the enclosures on October 12, 2014.
It is learnt that the government has sought Rs. 25 crore from the World Bank for taking up reconstruction and expansion of the zoo.
There are 65 enclosures housing a wide variety of wildlife, including big cats, monkeys, birds, bears, snakes, wild dogs, lizards, crocodiles, ostrich, elephants.
Luckily, zoo officials had moved the animals, especially the big cats, into their night crawls a day before Hudhud struck the Visakhapatnam coast. Thousands of trees were either uprooted or reduced to stubs by the gales. Most of the enclosures were destroyed.
Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu, during his visit to the zoo days after the devastation, promised to appoint a consultant to restore the beauty of the zoo and develop it on the lines of the Singapore Zoo.
Principal Chief Conservator of Forests A.V. Joseph told The Hindu on the sidelines of a workshop here that there were plans to further develop the zoo.
Dismissing rumours on shifting of the zoo, he said: “Only around 150 of the 625 acres in the zoo has been utilised and we have lot of scope for expansion activities like developing a bird park. We have not received any proposal for shifting of the zoo so far.”
“Around a dozen panthers are in the wild at Kambalakonda Wildlife Sanctuary. Measures are being taken to provide drinking water in the sanctuary as the natural water source has dried up and there is a danger of the animals straying into concrete jungles,” he said.