The four-day-old sacred baboon looks around with amazement from its tiny cage at the hospital wing of the Indira Gandhi Zoological Park. As it strikes a friendly pose at the hospital staff, it has little inkling of how its survival itself has been no less a miracle.
In a third such instance in the zoo, the mother of the sacred baboon turned hostile a few hours after its birth following which the newborn was separated from it late in the night and is now being hand-raised at the hospital section. “We were alerted by the animal keeper at around 11 p.m. that the mother was showing signs of distress. By the time we reached the enclosure, it was holding the newborn male against the wall and trying to harm it. It took us a while to separate them,” said K.K. Pavane, junior doctor at the zoo.
Exactly a year ago, a similar instance had occurred in the sacred baboon enclosure and fortunately, the newborn was rescued before the mother could cause any harm.
Rare in India
Zoo curator B. Vijay Kumar told The Hindu that the breeding of sacred baboon in captivity was a rare occurrence in Indian zoos. “Stress could be one of the main factors that make the female turn hostile. The newborn is coping well under constant supervision of the zoo staff,” he said.
It is being fed an artificial milk supplement, every two hours. However, this time the zoo staff are being extra cautious. “In the previous case, when Anirudh (the other young sacred baboon) was separated from its mother, it was able to suckle mother’s milk for four full days. But in this case, the newborn had no such scope. Its immunity may be weak as a result. We are monitoring its growth very carefully in a sterilised environment,” Dr. Pavane said.
Rarely seen in India, the Vizag zoo has at present five females (apart from the two young ones), which were brought from Germany in 2014. It had recently lost the only male.
According to researchers, ‘cannibalism’ among animals is triggered due to a variety of factors. “One of the major causes in this particular case of sacred baboons is said to be stress. The loud calls and sound of the newborn trigger anxiety in the mother. In most cases, the animal tends to feel insecure and vulnerable to predators as a result of the sound and thus harms the newborn. Any human presence after the delivery is also a cause for stress,” Dr. Pavane added.
Incidentally, this kind of behaviour had been a recurring occurrence among sacred baboons, and in an earlier occurrence one of the newborns could not be saved.
In the recent past, the hyena enclosure had witnessed a similar incident when the mother turned hostile for the third consecutive time.
