Soon strolling through the wilderness of the National Zoological Park (NZP) in the national Capital will be more pleasurable and informative for kids and elders alike. In line with the international zoos, the NZP also known as Delhi Zoo will soon have interesting and colorful attractions like rain forest (walk-in-aviary), butterfly park, aquarium, primary park, primate park, insectariums, desert trail, nocturnal animal house and pheasant trail etc.
Considered to be one of the most spacious zoological parks of the country spread over the 126 acres of land, the Delhi Zoo is presently home to about 1,350 animals representing almost 130 species, apart from having a wide variety of indigenous and exotic birds.
Now with an aim to promote it as a world class zoo as envisaged in its master plan vision (2017-2026), the NZP has listed major animal enclosures for taking up on priority basis.
In walk-in-aviary, one can walk between the birds and see birds feeding, preening and breeding and get information through displayed boards along the walk while insectariums, a live insect zoo will exhibit a variety of insects and similar arthropods, such as spiders, beetles, cockroaches, ants, bees and millipedes among others.
Similarly, the butterfly park will have variety of species of butterflies besides trees host plants and nectar plants while the nocturnal house where through management of light the nocturnal animals will be induced to remain active during day (when visitors come) and sleep during night.
“A few such animal facilities required to be immediately developed are rain forest (walk-in-aviary), butterfly park, aquarium, primate park, insectariums, desert trail, nocturnal animal house , pheasant trail etc,” said a senior official from the Union Environment Ministry which directly controls its functioning.
The NZP is a Central Zoo Authority (CZA) recognised zoo under the category of “large zoo”.
“Recently, it was felt to promote NZP as a world class zoo. Accordingly, a perspective plan is proposed to make it world class incorporating major works of approved master plan in ten years (2017 - 2026). Vision of the zoo is promoting it as a world class zoo,” he said.
He added that to fulfill the vision, conceived plan of all these facilities are incorporated in approved Master Plan.
In this direction, the NZP has invited expression of interest from the zoo consultants/firms to prepare designs of the enclosures, the official added.
The enclosures will be designed as per the CZA norms and specification to provide world class housing conditions to the zoo animals so as to suit their natural instincts and behaviour. The zoo is also part of the conservation breeding programmes of the CZA.