But for some stress, two Himalayan black bears that reached the city zoo on Wednesday morning were none the worse for their journey of over 3,500 km by train that took nearly four days.
The bears reached the zoo after being unloaded off the Dibrugarh-Kanyakumari Vivek Express that brought them from the Nagaland Zoological Park at Dimapur.
While the female bear constantly paced the confines of the cage that brought her to the zoo and the animal house where she was released later, the male did some quick exploration, standing on his hind legs and stretching as far as possible to touch the iron grills and walls. There were ice blocks filled with grapes, watermelon, and honey to welcome the new arrivals and help them settle in.
It is only natural that the young bears, just below two years of age, get stressed, though their journey was largely by train, zoo veterinarian Jacob Alexander said. The surroundings, noises, smells, and people were all new to them, not to mention the crowd at the railway station and at the zoo to catch a glimpse of the animals.
Fans, fruits, and seclusion did their trick, and the animals were comfortable by evening, he said.
Quarantine
“They will be in quarantine at the animal house for up to three weeks, so that any disease they may have manifests itself in that time, preventing its spread to other animals. Only then will they be moved for public display.”
Dr. Alexander said quarantining the bears at the animal enclosure instead of the zoo hospital would also make it unnecessary for them to be shifted again.
Dimapur and Kohima, named so to remind one of their association with the two places in the northeast of the country, have been put up in separate cages since they are yet to become familiar with each other. Only later will they be put up together for breeding purposes.
Minister for Zoos K. Raju also dropped in at the zoo to look up the new arrivals.
The bears were brought here in exchange for two Bengal tigers — Karthika and Manikantan — that the Nagaland Zoological Park did not have in its collection. A nine-member team from the zoo, including Dr. Alexander, superintendent Priyarajan, a supervisor, and six keepers — set off from Thiruvananthapuram early January 6 on what was an eventful journey that included travel through inhospitable locales in cold weather and even theft.
It caps three years of efforts to bring the bears in exchange for tigers, Zoo Director K. Gangadharan said. He lauded the support of Railways in making the journey as comfortable as possible for the animals and the team. With the bears’ arrival, the enclosure that was left desolate after the death of Bhavani, the sole Himalayan bear at the zoo, promises to pulse with life again.
