It is a rare phenomenon of human relations with
animals – in some zoos, the animal keepers become so friendly with the animals,
that they respond to human language and calling by names ! In life –
sometimes there would be options ~
there have been occasions
of man intruding in to the enclosure of wild animals and .. .. ..
o in more than a couple occasions in Western World, the animal (though
not at all faulty) was shot dead and humans saved !
o in a Delhi incident, a man jumped into the cage – a 200 kg Tiger mauled
him, while the gory incident was caught on mobile video and circulated widely.
o Is there any other possibility ? .. . .. ??
Thiruvananthapuram
Zoo is one of the oldest of its kind in India. Swathi Thirunal Rama Varma, who
ruled Travancore between 1830 and 1847, established a menagerie where royal
tigers, panthers, cheetahs, deer, boar, and other wild animals were kept. His
brother Uthram Thirunal and British Resident William Cullen formally establish
the zoo in 1857 as an annex to the Napier Museum.
The Zoo is in news
as media reports and mobile phone footage shows a man jumping into an open enclosure housing lions at the
Zoo on Wednesday. The footage, filmed by a visitor at the zoo, shows the man
crawl towards a lion's cage. But unlike
the earlier cases where either the animal was shot dead or the man getting
killed, here was a happy ending – man saved by the alacrity of zoo workers.
Police say the man, scaled
a barbed fence, jumped over a short wall and crossed a moat towards what
appears to be the lion's cage this morning around 11 AM. On seeing this,
another visitor immediately alerted zoo workers. One media writes perhaps with a tinge of
sadness that the alleged face-off was
not caught on camera. In the footage,
the insane mane is seen crawling towards the animal – however, the alert staff
keeper of the animal, risked his life, entered the cage, lunged to grab the man
and dragged him away with more workers helping them out. It could have ended rather sadly, if the
animal had attacked any of them.
It is stated that
the keepers acted with alacrity and good presence of mind, in trying to divert
the attention of the lioness. Further
reports put the lioness as ‘gracy’ – which perhaps exhibited its usual behaviour of running away at the sight
of humans when she spotted a stranger in
her open enclosure. It was gracious that
she didn't get time for her second act;
lurking somewhere and pouncing back with all the might.
In an interesting
story, TOI reports quoting Vimal, the zoo-keeper who has taken care of the
lioness since she was born saying - had
the zoo-keepers been even a teeny bit late to act, she would have come back and
attacked Murugan.“Whenever we get to the enclosure with her daily diet, she
would run away first, only to come sprinting towards us from somewhere. May be,
it was the presence of lot of men that dissuaded her from doing soon Wednesday
or else it would have been tragic for that person,'' said Vimal.
The CCTV visuals in
the enclosure show the intruder crawling
on all fours and the lioness running off on seeing him. The foolish person kept
following the lion but in a matter of
few minutes zoo keepers entered the enclosure and dragged him out. It is
further reported that Gracy, one among the two remaining lions in the city zoo
was raised by the zoo vet and the keeper after her mother Aiswarya died of
cancer. Nursing became essential as the cub used to be attacked by Ayush, its
biological father.“She was born with deformed limbs. As a cub she was under
incubation and had to be fed with goat milk and supplements through a syringe
by the vet,'' said the other zoo keeper.
Till she was one year old, Gracy would gambol around Vimal as he
prepared feed for other lions or cleaned the cages. When she was released into
the open enclosure she would follow the familiar zoo staff whenever they walked
by the enclosure.
They concluded - “For
all her pet-like behaviour, she is still a lion and I have often experienced
the animal instinct in Gracy even though I had raised her.'' Looks a real
miraculous escape ! – happy ending for the person did not lose his life and the
animal too was not harmed.
With regards – S.
Sampathkumar
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