In a bid to make it a more close to nature experience for the visitors of Delhi Zoo, the authority has undertaken a series of tasks to give the park a facelift. Zoo officials have begun installing ornamental bamboo railings around all its enclosures for animals. While preparation of new signage and maps is underway, the authority is also planning to change the direction of the entire tour.
“We are replacing the existing iron railings with bamboo-like fences. So far, these railings have been installed around the enclosures of the lion-tailed macaque, Royal Bengal tiger and a few others. The bamboo concept was chosen to give the zoo a natural setup. The construction of new footpath has been completed making it wheelchair-friendly,” said RA Khan, Curator (Education), Delhi Zoo. Signage and new maps are being prepared and they will be up soon, added Khan. Currently, signage and maps are in shambles at the zoological park which boasts of being one of the oldest in the country.
Besides, the officials are also mulling over changing the direction of the incoming visitors. The route has been tweaked after officials surveyed the behaviour of the visiting crowd. “At present, people begin their tour by seeing common animals like deer, monkey and chimpanzee. Most of them get tired by the end of the road where the highly demanded animals like lions, tiger, jaguar and white tiger are kept. So we will make the movement of the people anti-clockwise wherein people will first get to see these big animals and later, the commonly found ones,” informed Khan. As of now, people have to take a right immediately upon entering and exit from near the director’s office. But now, it will be opposite.
All these steps have been taken in the city’s zoo in a run-up to the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums (WAZA) conference to be held in India for the first time in 2014. The Central Zoo Authority (CZA) has proposed ‘zoo as window to biodiversity’ as the theme for the conference, which will be attended by zoo directors from across the world and will include presentation of several case studies of zoos in India. The theme is in line with CZA’s larger goal of creating large enclosures and a natural habitat for zoo inmates.