Barang: In what would cheer the bird enthusiasts, the Nandankanan Zoological Park (NZP) here welcomed 12 long-billed vultures from the Gwalior Zoo late Tuesday night.
According to NZP sources, a six-member team of NZP comprising ACF Prasant Kumar Panda, range officer Ashok Kumar Das, veterinarian Debabrat Mohapatra, education officer Milan Kumar Panda and other senior staffers, who had been to Gwalior Zoo November 20, brought six male and as many female vultures.
“The winged guests were gifted by our Gwalior counterpart and will help revive the Vulture Reproduction Centre at Botanical Garden. We’ll monitor their health for a few days at the veterinary hospital here before releasing them into their enclosure,” a senior Nandankanan official told the media.
Sources said the Vulture Reproduction Centre at Botanical Garden, whose construction began over a 3-acre of land in 2011, was ready by 2014. At that juncture, the authorities spent Rs 70 lakh for the initiative. However, owing to poor count of vultures, the centre went into slumber a few months after its launch late 2014.
A few days before the arrival of the vultures from Gwalior, the zoo authorities revived the Vulture Reproduction Centre with an expenditure of Rs 5 lakh.
