BHUBANESWAR: The Nandankanan Zoological Park authorities were caught napping when a herd of five elephants entered its premises on Monday morning. Though the jumbos brought down the perimeter wall and moved in, the animal park officials had no clue about their movement until the Chandaka Wildlife (WL) Division informed them about the development. Something is clearly not right with the management.
A herd of elephants, which was near Ekamra Kanan, had moved towards Raghunathpur before being driven by Chandaka WL Division staff. That’s when a group of five jumbos hit the compound wall of Nandankanan Zoo and got inside at about 10 am. The pachyderms left the zoo premises only at about 4.30 pm after a joint team of Chandaka WL and Nandankanan drove them away.
“Chandaka Wildlife Division officials informed us that the elephants had entered the zoo campus. The jumbos were driven out later in the evening,” said Deputy Director of Nandankanan Jayant Kumar Das. The incident has raised questions on what the Zoo ACF, who looks after the day to day management, was doing when the elephants made their way into the premises.
In fact, the Zoo officials could not even provide a correct picture of the number of elephants that had got inside. “It was more than one. From the dung, we think there were about three elephants in the group,” Das said.Contacted, Divisional Forest Officer of Chandaka WL Kedar Swain said five elephants had entered the Zoo premises.
Das claimed that the elephant herd did not come close to the animal enclosures and no infrastructure was damaged. Luckily, the jumbos did not come close to areas used by visitors or animal enclosures lest things could have got worse.
“We are investigating how many elephants had strayed into the zoo, but suspect that at least three elephants had managed to enter. We have temporarily closed the wall which was broken by the elephants. No other damage has been observed so far,” the Deputy Director said.