BALLARI: The Atal Bihari Vajpayee Zoological Park in Hampi of Ballari is all set to expand its services to the region. The zoo which is also known as Hampi Zoo will now have a rescue and rehabilitation facility for the wildlife animals such as woof, leopard and sloth bear.
The move comes a month after Mysuru Zoo helped the Hampi zoo set up a veterinary hospital on their premises. The rescue centre aims to help in mitigating the human animal conflict and will also have state-of-art facilities to deal with any kind of wildlife situation in the Kalyan Karnataka region.
The rescue centre is coming up at the zoo premises and will be constructed at a cost of Rs 80 lakh. This will be first such facility in North Karnataka and third in the state after Bengaluru and Mysuru. The centre will also take up treatment for the injured wildlife.
Kiran M N, Executive Director Hampi Zoo said that the new centre will reduce the response time during man-animal conflict, thus helping to save the animals. "The Daroji Sloth Bear sanctuary in Ballari has numbers of bears and leopards which come into conflict with humans on many occasions. The rescue centre will also act as rehab facility for the injured animals," he explained.
Currently Ballari zoo houses white tiger and lions besides other animals. The rescue centre will be set up in the zoo premises and will have separate staff for the facility.
"There will be three dedicated staff at the rescue centre and during field operations we can use staff from zoo and local forest divisions depending on the case. There have been instances were leopards and bears are injured or seen regularly in human populated areas and during such times the role of rescue centre is very important. This will help mitigate conflict," pointed out a wildlife expert from Ballari.