Hyderabad’s Nehru zoo family to grow bigger

The authorities are in talks with zoological parks in Europe for a pair of zebras under an animal exchange programme.

Hyderabad: The solitary existence of Sunny, the young male giraffe at the Nehru Zoological Park, is set to end, with zoo authorities finding a suitable mate in the Alipore Zoological Garden, Kolkata.

Sunny was brought under an animal exchange programme from the Kolkata zoo, along with a female partner, Bubli, in 2019 but the latter passed away after a brief illness in 2021.

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Apart from Sunny, the Nehru zoo has another senior male giraffe, Tsunami Basant.

The zoo officials said following their request, the Alipore Zoological Garden has agreed to send a female giraffe to Hyderabad and discussions were on to hammer out the final details.

Additionally, visitors to the city zoo can soon look forward to catching a glimpse of a zebra after almost two decades.

The authorities are in talks with zoological parks in Europe for a pair of zebras under an animal exchange programme.

Also on the cards for the new collection are a chimpanzee and a cheetah. Suzi, the last chimpanzee at the zoo, died in 2020.

As for the cheetah, talks are under way with the Dubai zoo. Earlier, Saudi Prince Bandar Bin Muhammad Al Saud gifted the cheetah, Abdullah, to the city zoo, which died of a heart attack last year.

“We have lost priced collections in the recent past and want to revive it. Talks are on with different zoos for animal exchange. We have also planned for a white rhino from the Singapore zoo and if the talks materialise, the zoo will soon welcome a white rhino as well,” a senior official said.

Meanwhile, four lion cubs and two tiger cubs are expected to join zoo family soon. Also expected are hippopotamus and rhinoceros calves.

“This time, we have intermixed white and yellow Royal Bengal tigers. Except for Gujarat, only the NZP Hyderabad has pure Asiatic lions in the country,” the official added.