Natural calamities caused by incessant rain have not only hit the tourism industry in the mountain State this year but also led to a sharp decline in the total number of guests that the GB Pant High Altitude Zoo in Nainital receives per day.
The adverse weather conditions resulting in poor road connectivity disturbed the flow of visitors to the aforesaid zoo at a time when the number of visitors remain maximum i.e May and June. With atmospheric conditions remaining normal in lake city Nainital even when temperature remains quite high elsewhere, people prefer to visit hill areas like Nainital and more importantly, visit of the aforesaid zoo remains on the top of the tour schedule of the tourists resulting in arrival of high number of tourists in the zoo during the peak of the summer season.
Thus whereas about 1000 people including children visit zoo per day during peak tourist season i.e. in May and June, now the number of visitors has sharply come down even below fifty percent of the total number of tourists who visit the zoo per day. On account of adverse whether conditions there has been a sharp decline in the arrival of the tourists here, said Manoj Shah, Range Officer of the Nainital zoo, while talking to The Pioneer. The matter of fact is that the sharp decline in the total number of tourists visiting zoo, has also hit the income of the zoo that it earns from the visitors as entry fee.
The zoo administration has kept a minimum Rs 50 per head as entry fee. Keeping in view a huge number of tourists i.e. about 1000 per day, the loss that has been done to the zoo administration is huge. We are, however, of the view that as soon as the weather conditions improve, flow of visitors or the animal lovers will also gain momentum, Shah added. It is to note that inmate mammals like Himalayan Black Bear, Sambar, Barking Deer, Goral, Serow, Himalayan Civet, to name a few are the main attractions of the high altitude zoo which is always known for having rare variety of high altitude species.
Besides, birds like Kalij pheasant , silver pheasant, lady Amherst’s pheasant , Red Jungle Folul, Golden pheasant, Hill Partridge, Steppe Eagle, Edward pheasant, lineated Kalij, Indian Peafowl and different species of parakeets also attract the attentions of the visitors in a big way.