Despite these times of distress, the Bannerghatta Biological Park’s (BBP) animal adoption programme has been generating a good response.
On Saturday, the park received ₹6.45 lakh worth of contributions from people who adopted animals there. While 17-year-old elephant Nisargha, and tigress Hima, aged one and a half years, were adopted by Bengaluru MLA M. Krishnappa for ₹2.75 lakh, others adopted tigers Rajendra and Gokul for ₹1 lakh each, leopards Lokesh and Ashoka for ₹35,000 each, tiger Sanjay for ₹50,000 and a zebra for ₹50,000, a BBP release stated.
In 2019-20, BBP incurred expenditure of ₹38 crore on fodder and feed, salary to the staff, maintenance and development and veterinary care. The park has been seeing increasing interest from organisations and individuals wishing to contribute to the park in the form of donations, animal adoption and implementation of development works such as construction of animal enclosures and visitor facilities, BBP officials said.
BBP Executive Director Vanashri Vipin Singh told The Hindu that the adoption programme had received around 80 enquiries from across India and also abroad, and there would be more adoptions in the coming week. “Last week, 36 people adopted 43 animals and donated ₹5.36 lakh. The number of people involved in ex situ conservation is increasing by the day. Last year, the total number of people who adopted was 64 and the donation received was ₹7 lakh. Most of them had adopted small animals,” she said.
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