If things go according to plan, Malar, the lone female white tiger at the city zoo, would get a mate in June. The white male is expected to be brought over from the Delhi zoo. The Central Zoo Authority is yet to give its nod for this proposal.
Along with the male white tiger, the city zoo is also scheduled to get a pair of Goral which is the Himalayan version of the Nilgiri tahr.
In return, the zoo is expected to give to Delhi a male ostrich, a pair of rhea, three pairs of Brahminy kite, a pair of brown fish owl, two pairs of barn owl, five bonnet macaques, and a pair of Spectacled caiman.
Advantage to city zoo
For the city zoo this exchange is to its advantage. It would dearly love to give the male ostrich to the first bidder because the male scheduled for exchange is a “fighter.” Now there are two male ostriches here. When the ‘troublemaker’ is given away, the zoo plans to bring over two or three female ostriches from Chennai.
Then it plans to put in place a breeding programme for these birds.
The zoo also has in excess the bonnet macaque, the owls and the kite. In fact, many kites are being kept at the zoo hospital for want of display space. The zoo has ten of these birds right now. The rhea is a chick that the zoo incubated. There are five more rhea eggs in the incubator.
The problem of numbers is really bad in the case of the bonnet macaque. The Thrissur zoo alone has 120 of these monkeys. Similarly the spectacled caiman enclosure is also witness to regular infighting between the males and as such they are kept in separate enclosures. The caimans are expected to get a much larger enclosure at Delhi.
