BENGALURU: The Bannerghatta Biological Park (BBP) management is getting a male white tiger in a week from Chennai to give company to the lone white female tiger at its facility and to increase the numbers of these albino cats.
The three-year-old male tiger is being brought in exchange for a lion, under the animal exchange programme. It will be housed in the tiger safari area after the due quarantine procedures, BBP Director Sunil Panwar told The New Indian Express.“The male tiger will arrive at BBP next Friday,” he said.
The male tiger is being brought to be a companion to a six to seven-year-old lone female white tigress. The staffers said that they will have to see how their compatibility is.
Zoo keepers said that at present, the female white tigress is bonding with a Royal Bengal tiger and is suspected to be pregnant. “We are hoping that the cubs born are white, so that their numbers increase. We earlier had white tiger cubs, but they died due to various reasons,” the zoo officials said. The zoo houses 17 tigers, 20 lions and 64 leopards (of which 50 are rescued). Zoo officials said they have the highest number of leopards as all the rescued ones are brought to BBP.
“Whether the leopard or a cub is rescued by citizens, farmers, activists or even the forest department, they all are brought to BBP. We are housing them in the rescue centre and in enclosures away from people. This is because rescued wildlife is not for display as per the Central Zoo Authority norms. Only the leopards born in-house are only on display. We are keen to give away our leopards, but because of increasing rescue operations and their nature, zoo managements are reluctant to house many leopards on their premises,” said the officials.