Expressing concern that its suggestion given ten years ago was not heeded yet, the Central Zoo Authority (CZA) in no uncertain terms asked the Cuttack Municipal Corporation (CMC) to relocate half of the deer from the Cuttack park to elsewhere immediately.
Visiting the Deer Park near Tulasipur here, the CZA officials on Friday said the park is bursting at the seams as the four-acre park is now housing nearly 170 deer. It has been a decade since the suggestion came from the apex body of the zoos in the country but the authorities here are still noncommittal and the poor animals perish every year as the scorching summer takes its toll.
The park in the city was set up in February 1981 with a purpose of enhancing the aesthetic scenario of the millennium city. The park was set up in only four acres of land at a cost of Rs 40 lakh and 85 deer were received from the Nandankanan zoological park. The civic body is looking after the animals including their food, medicines and maintenance of boundary walls.
Animal lovers have often alleged that adequate care was not taken to provide sufficient food and medicines to the animals. A single thatched shed inside the park is not sufficient to protect all animals, they said lamenting over the fact that the authorities were not concerned for the visitors to watch the animals from its boundary.