New home for bear family

ARTI SAHULIYAR – The Telegraph

Ranchi, May 4: Jyoti and her cubs have finally got a home to call their own.

After giving birth on January 1, Jyoti, the Himalayan bear at Birsa Munda Zoological Park, was kept at an observation room because the zoo authorities had faced flak when last year a female bear had killed her cubs. But now, the family will move to a separate enclosure.

The authorities have made special arrangements for the Himalayan bears by constructing three special cells along with an open area, where visitors will not be allowed.

The Himalayan cubs have been kept with their mother in the isolated enclosure and are responding to medical treatment well.

Jyoti and her cubs at the new enclosure at Birsa Munda Zoological Park on Monday. Picture by Prashant Mitra

“We are administering calcium and iron tonics to the cubs and keeping them under observation at the separate enclosure. They look fit now. The mother is being given fruits. It will not be before three months that the bears are put in the display enclosure,” said Dinesh Kumar, the zoo veterinary.

P.K. Verma, the director of the zoo, said that last year, the Himalayan bears were kept in the display enclosure along with sloth bears. “The mother and the children did not get enough privacy, which led to adjustment problems, so the female bear ate her own cubs. But now, Jyoti and her cubs have been given privacy and kept under 24-hour observation,” he said.

Talking about the nature of the bears, Kumar said: “The Himalayan bears are very aggressive and if they can sense any threat to their cubs, they eat them before anything goes wrong. That is what happened last year. These bears are generally in conflict with other animals and human beings also,” Kumar said.

Verma said that they are yet to identify the sex of the cubs. “After they are strong enough to adjust to the environment in which they have been kept, we will try to find out their sex,” he said.

Currently, there are four female and one male Himalayan bear in the zoo, apart from the two cubs.

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