West Bengal catch up on your zoo faves from comfort of home

KOLKATA: Missing your weekend walks at the Alipore Zoological Gardens? Amid the Covid-induced restrictions, the authorities have come up with a unique way to bring your favourite zoo animals to your living room — through live telecasts. So, be it the Bengal tiger, the Asiatic lion, the chimpanzee or grey kangaroo, get ready to meet them sitting at your home and beat the Covid blues.
From Monday, the zoo authorities will start the live telecasts twice daily on Facebook. State forest minister Rajeev Banerjee inaugurated the initiative at the city zoo on Sunday afternoon. The same initiative will be replicated for Padmaja Naidu Himalayan Zoological Park, Darjeeling.

While the city zoo, during the inauguration, went live with footages of chimpanzee, Darjeeling zoo did live telecasts of red panda and Himalayan black bear.
State zoo authority member secretary V K Yadav said the telecasts for both Alipore and Darjeeling zoos will be available between 9am and 10am and again from 3pm to 4pm. “While the link to go to Alipore zoo page is https://www.facebook.com/kolkatazoo.alipore5, for Darjeeling zoo it is https://www.facebook.com/Padmaja-Naidu-Himalayan-Zoological-Park,” he said, adding that, alternatively, one can also follow the live telecast on YouTube.
The zoos were closed to visitors on March 17. In April, the authorities had launched an app to help people take a virtual tour of Alipore zoo.
Yadav said as of now, they will conduct the live telecasts through CCTV cameras installed at animal enclosures. “The scientific officer or zoo biologist will also speak during live telecasts to help people know more about the animals. The entire Alipore zoo is now under CCTV coverage. So, everyday we will select two animals — say tiger and lion. If we do live telecast of tiger during the morning slot, the afternoon slot will have a telecast of real-time activities of the lion,” said Yadav. According to him, they also have plans to do live video recordings with voice-over.
“We would have launched it earlier, but had to defer plans since some CCTV cameras were damaged after Cyclone Amphan,” added Yadav.
According to him, they also have similar plans for Bengal Safari near Siliguri. “We are facing some network issues there. Once that is resolved, we will launch the project there too,” he said.
These initiatives will be continued even after the situation normalizes.
During lockdown, the Maharashtra forest department had taken up a similar initiative by introducing virtual safari tours from Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve.
(With inputs from Deep Gazmer & Roshan Gupta )