Nagpur: Amid the lockdown, wild animals brought from outside the city are being isolated as per instructions issued by the Central Zoo Authority (CZA) to curb the Coronavirus spread. A tigress was captured from Goregaon-Tirora range on Thursday after it killed two persons in Gondia district, Maharashtra.
It was brought to the Gorewada rescue centre in the city on Friday morning. It has been kept quarantined as per the CZA instructions and is the first such incident in the State following the epidemic.
The US Zoo Authority has instructed, all zoos in the country to be on alert after a tiger in the Bronx zoo, New York contracted the Coronavirus. Similarly, the tigress brought at the rescue centre has been isolated as per the CZA instructions. Blood and stool samples of the tigress have been sent for testing.
“The feline creature is healthy. However, one could confirm its health condition only after receiving the reports of the tests,” said the veterinarians at the rescue centre. The tigress and other wild animals are being observed 24x7 via the CCTV cameras. The caretaker staff has been given special instructions. They have been asked to keep minimum contact while feeding the animals while isolating sick animals.
The tigress was captured in Gondia
A man and a woman were killed in separate attacks by the tigress in March and April in the Goregaon and Tirora ranges. A technical committee was set up as per the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA), which studied the tigress and concluded that it came from the Brahmapuri range.
Later, as per the guidelines of the NTCA and on the advice of the technical committee, principal conservator of forests (wildlife) and Maharashtra chief wildlife warden Nitin Kakodkar ordered to nab it.
The future course as per the committee’s instructions is that the tigress will be shifted to an enclosure at the rescue centre after its 14-day isolation ends.
Later, the technical committee is to ready a plan to release it back into the wild. The panel has to first confirm whether it is a man-eater or not before its release.
