Eminent tiger expert Valmik Thapar on Friday criticised the Nandankanan Zoo authorities for being callous in their approach to save lives of 13 big cats which dropped dead like flies early last month. “After the first tiger died under mysterious circumstances, the zoo authorities should have closed it down and put the entire area on quarantine,” Thapar told reporters on the sidelines of a national seminar on tigers in Calcutta. The conservation activist said in order to prevent the outbreak of life-threatening diseases in captivity, the entire process of conventional zoo management needs restructuring. “We need to have a thorough scientific probe into the breeding programmes carried out in our zoos and train our vets to understand these diseases better ...Or else there will be many more Nandankanans,” Thapar cautioned.

He said improper food checks, over-crowding and water contamination were proving to be awesome problems for the tigers in captivity.

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Echoing Thapar's views, veteran wildlife expert Billy Arjan Singh said, “The shameful deaths of tigers in Orissa was both a criminal offence and demeaning.”

“When the mortality is probably due to prolonged inbreeding of white tigers for commercial motives, the authorities are searching for viruses to blame for the catastrophe,” he said. Singh said that when the main religion of the country forbids intergenic alliances for purposes of lineal purity, “We connive at continuous incestuous inbreeding of the freak tigers to earn a dishonest penny at the expense of our national animal.

Report: Zeenext Bureau