Zoo authorities on the horns of a dilemma

By G. Mahadevan

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, MAY 6. A rapid increase of the captive deer population in the Thiruvananthapuram zoo has placed authorities on the horns of a dilemma.

Hesitant to face the perils that accompany sterilisation and having no established protocol to release deer into the wild, zoo authorities are at a loss to decide how to manage the cheethals and sambhars that have filled the enclosures in the city zoo almost to bursting.

Deer, by nature, are prolific breeders. A female deer has one to two calves a year which in turn are ready to mate in another year-and-a-half. The city zoo had 47 cheethals (spotted deer) and 42 sambhars in 1995. Now, there are 79 cheethals and 60 sambhars in the zoo. That is, 50 deer have been added in five years. The situation is similar at the Thrissur zoo where the spotted deer alone number 120. In the Thrippunithura park, there are 93 cheethals and 18 sambhars.

All told, the captive deer population in Kerala now stands at around 400. According to the figures available at the Thiruvananthapuram zoo, the captive deer population in the whole of the country is approximately 9,000. Of this about 6,500 are cheethals and 2,500 are sambhars. This indicates that the problem of over-population is prevalent in almost all the zoos in the country.

In the city zoo--as in most of the zoos--it is uncontrolled breeding that has led to this problem with deer numbers. The question now confronting zoo authorities, here, is how to go about controlling their deer population. The first method that seems obvious--sterilisation--is, however, seen as a last resort by the authorities. Deer being very excitable by nature are extremely difficult to capture and tranquilise. Once they are disturbed, the deer tend to rush helter skelter injuring themselves, sometimes fatally, in the process.

Deer can also die due to fright or trauma suffered during the capture and the subsequent sterilisation process. In fact it is the death of a deer during the sterilisation process at the Thrippunithura park and the subsequent public outcry that led to the shelving of a plan to sterilise all the male deer in that zoo. The half completed sterilisation process at Thrippunithura has only spelt doom to the efforts at controlling the deer population there. All this has made the zoo authorities in the State very hesitant to take up sterilisation of the captive deer population.

The lasting solution as advocated by zoo authorities and animal rights groups is introduction of these deer to the wild. However, this process too is fraught with dangers. Captive-bred deer that have been subjected to `human imprinting' stand very little chance of surviving in the wild. For instance, they do not even know to graze for food. Due to a friendly human contact in the zoos, these deer are more prone to be victims of hunting. Captive-bred deer are also known to be carriers of such diseases as tuberculosis which is non-existent among wild deer. Moreover, in-breeding among captive deer has also considerably weakened their gene-stock. Introducing such deer to the wild can have disastrous consequences.

Zoo authorities and NGOs such as the People For Animals (PFA) suggest the creation of special enclosures in identified wildlife reserves where the captive-bred deer can be initially introduced and observed for adaptability. If the deer take to the habitat, they can then be released into the reserves where too they need to be observed for adaptability. Zoo authorities say the Forest Department must take up the responsibility for identifying suitable reserves, creating the enclosures and the subsequent monitoring of the deer.

According to the Director of Zoos, Mr. Yelakki, it would take only about a year to put such a system in place. According to the zoo authorities here, Kerala is perhaps the only State where the zoos do not come under the control of the Forest Department. Here, it is the Department of Culture that oversees the management of the zoos.

The PFA activist, Ms. Leela Latheef, warns that if more deer parks are set up in the State, the problem of the exploding deer population would only become worse. Even though an augmentation of the deer enclosures is envisaged in the masterplan of the Thiruvananthapuram zoo, this is at best a stop-gap arrangement.

If something drastic is not done, right away, the deer in the city zoo would soon have only standing space in their enclosures.

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