All zoos in India will upload the updated inventory of the animals they house — especially the 26 priority endangered species for conservation breeding programme — on the official website of the Central Zoo Authority (CZA) by March 31.
The 166 zoos of the nation face the challenge posed by the limited academic qualification of animal keepers and shortage of veterinarian doctors with specialty and experience in treating wild animals, said Central Zoo Authority member secretary DN Singh.
Talking on the sidelines of the five-day annual conference of Indian zoos underway in Dehradun, Singh said animal keepers in zoos are not educated much nor technically qualified. "Though the task of an animal keeper is very important, the general perception is that it is a menial task whereas in foreign nations qualified zoo animal keepers can subsequently rise up to become director of zoo. There are total 166 zoos in India of which 14 are large with the remaining being medium and mini sized. There is dearth of full-time veterinarians in most of the mini zoos due to which the authorities seek the assistance of the animal husbandry department vets though there is marked difference in the method and experience of veterinary practice on livestock and wild animals," said Singh.
Regarding effort towards release of captive-bred populations to revive wild population he said about 250 vultures of three species have been bred at Pinjore and are likely to be released into the wild by next year. Of CZA initiatives he said, "During past six months we have worked with the Indian Veterinary Research Institute, Bareilly, drafting protocol and guidelines for aspects like treatment of ailments and dietary requirements of wild animals in captivity with this literature also being uploaded on our official website."
"We are considering aspects like prevention of inbreeding and weakening of gene pool, we are working on digitalisation of the history card which has so far been made manually for each animal kept in every zoo. The history card with details about the lineage of the animal and original habitat area is being digitalised and with all the zoos slated to submit their updated inventory which will be available in the public domain on our website, information about the animals kept in any of the country's zoos will be available to officials and the public," he added.