New guests in the form of Sangai (Manipur Brow-antlered Deer) have arrived on Friday in Balasaheb Thackeray Gorewada International Zoo here, which will be an added attraction to the tourists.
Y L P Rao, Principal Chief Conservator of Forest (Head of Forest Force), and N Vasudevan, Managing Director, Forest Development Corporation of Maharashtra (FDCM) released eight Sangai deer in the enclosure of herbivores in the park on Friday. Sanjiv Gaur, Chief General manager, FDCM, and Rushikesh Ranjan, General Manager, FDCM, were present on the occasion.
Sangai deer, which are also called dancing deer at a lake in Manipur with floating ‘Phumdi’ vegetation, will now be an addition in the enclosure of blue bull, blackbuck, barking deer, Sambar, spotted deer etc in the Indian safari. Tourists can now enjoy safari with presence of these attractive Sangai deer, along with tigers, leopards, sloth-bears kept in other enclosures. Meanwhile, there are around 300 Sangai deer in the country and it is considered to be a rare species in the category of Schedule I of Wildlife Protection Act, 1972. These were brought from Delhi zoo one month ago but they were kept in quarantine uptil now.
Talking to mediapersons, Vasudevan said that a provision of Rs 100 crore had been made for African safari in Gorewada zoo adding that the work of African safari would begin in the near future. Central Zoo Authority, Delhi has already given approval to the proposals for this zoo of international standard.
On the occasion, Rao inaugurated website of the zoo and booking software. Kalpana Chinchkhede, Asstt Manager, FDCM, conducted the programme, informed H V Madbhushi, Divisionl Manager, Gorewada zoo project.
