THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Anacondas Renuka and Angela died in one month at the Thiruvananthapuram zoo. But zoo director S Abu was not too worried. “The reason for the death of the two is different. Renuka died when Angela crushed her during mating on July 5. She was 102 inches long and weighed 7.6 kg. She was seen bleeding by the keepers. With the death of Renuka, we installed CCTVs in the cage and it helped us to get inputs about the death of the last one. Angela died owing to a tumour which developed in the rectum,” he said.
Immediate preventive measures have been taken by the zoo officials to avoid further deaths of the remaining five. “We cannot afford to lose one more anaconda. Thus we have begun the disinfection process for the reptiles and fishes in the cages,” he added.
Out of the five anacondas, only one is male, while the rest are females. Two anacondas have already been kept under observation and only three of them can be viewed by the visitors. According to the zoo officials, they will soon be shifting one female anaconda of similar size to that of the male and they will be kept in a separate cage. “We cannot disregard the biological needs of the reptiles,” said the zoo director.
According to the CCTV footage, by 3 pm Angela was seen coming out of the water to the land and remained motionless. “We check the snakes every day. The snake was motionless when I came to feed her. We do not have a facility to scan the snake to find diseases. But Angela did not show any symptoms before her death otherwise we could have saved her,” said Harshad who feeds the snake regularly. The anacondas were brought from the Sri Lankan Dehiwala zoo in April 2017.