“Here is a hippo! Look here. Look, look this side!” cried another.[break]
“Didn´t I tell you all not to break the line,” their class teacher Devi Karki intervened, trying to stop the excited bunch from wandering away too far. “Bringing children this age to a zoo can be quite tiresome. You have to keep shouting at them as they do not stand still.”
The overjoyed children were not the only ones to rejoice the sightings of rare wild species in zoo in Lalitpur district. Three teenagers from Itahari, Rabin Shrestha, Arjun Shakya and Nabin Rai, who are in the city just for a week, said that they had made up their mind not to return home without visiting the zoo. The Rs 100 each of them paid to enter the zoo was "worth it".
“There is no such zoo in Itahari. We sometimes go to Taltalaiya to see monkeys, porcupine, deer and other animals,” said Shrestha, a student of Shree Janata Higher Secondary School in Itahari. “Here at the zoo, we were most excited to see hippo, siamang, ostrich, emu, to name a few,” he added.
Shrestha´s friend Rai said that he had never imaged that such a zoo existed in Nepal. “This is our first visit to a zoo. I never thought there could be such a big zoo in Kathmandu.”
But the Central Zoo, which stretches over 120 ropanis of land, is not big enough to accommodate the 115 species, including mammals, reptiles, birds and aquatic animals that it currently hosts, notes Sarita Gyanwali, a project officer at the zoo.
A larger space would allow more rooms for the animals to enjoy their stay at the zoo.
The zoo was set up in 1932 by the late Prime Minister Juddha SJB Rana. After the political changes of 1951, the government took over the zoo.
It was opened for public only in 1956. Over the years, the zoo´s management changed hands among various government departments.
It was handed over to National Trust for Nature Conservation (NTNC) in 1995 for 30 years.
“The number of visitors to the zoo has been rising steadily and so is the number of species. Therefore, the major requirement of the zoo family right now its its expansion,” stressed Ganesh Koirala, assistant curator of the zoo, who has been working here for more than 2 decades.
“In fact, there are some peculiar animals which would flourish in a space that is a bit wider,” he said.
The zoo gets over 1 million visitors a year. This includes huge number of schoolchildren, people from inside and outside the Valley and foreigners. Until five years ago, the number was below 1 million.
“One million people a year means 3,739 people every day. We receive huge crowd on holidays. People come here with families and friends,” said Rachana Shah, education officer at the zoo.
It is on the day of ´bhote jatra´, a local festival, when the zoo gets to see maximum visitors. Over 34,000 people visited the zoo on the day last year to worship their deities, which are represented by different animals. “Hence, the zoo has not only been conserving wildlife but also helping to propagate local culture,” remarked Shah.
Hot spot for couples
The zoo is also a hot spot for couples, say zoo officials. However, they are hardly seen during holidays when a lot of people throng the zoo as most couples prefer to keep their relationship private.
“We often come here on Fridays,” said Nabina Tamrakar, as she posed for her boyfriend who was ready to shoot. “We do not step into the zoo on Saturday even mistakenly,” she laughed. The zoo has been the couple´s dating spot for the last one and half years, revealed Nirmal KC, Tamraka´s partner.
The quiet and natural ambience, boating for a fee of Rs 30 and the freedom to spend long hours are some of the reasons that have made the zoo their favorite destination. “We just pay Rs 100 to enter. Once in, we can spend the whole day here until the zoo closes for the day,” Tamrakar said.
According to Ganesh Koirala, couples are generally seen around the pond. “There are trees and the place is quiet. So they love to spend time there,” he said. “We see too many of them each day, except on holidays.”
According to Koirala, the zoo staff has no reason to bother them if they do not engage in extreme behaviors.
“It is their right to enjoy their time at the zoo. We cannot bar them,” he said.
What the animals eat
Koirala informed that there are 199 mammals, 27 reptiles, 334 birds and 252 aquatic animals in the zoo at present. They consume food and fruits worth Rs 800,000 monthly. On a daily basis, the species are given 14 kg of paddy, 25 kg of gram, 52 kg of hay and 4 kg of wheat among others.
Similarly, some animals are fed fruits including apple, banana, pineapple and oranges. Sugarcane, cabbage, broccoli, milk and 35 kg of buff meat are served daily. Fish, egg, chicken also come under daily diet of some of the animals. “We ensure that the species are given fresh and standard food. There has to be good balance of diet or else it affects their health,” he said.
Special animals at the zoo
Exotic animals are brought to zoo through animal exchange programs with other countries. Currently, there are siamang, ostrich, hippopotamus and some rare bird species gifted by different countries. Other rare wildlife at the zoo are one-horned rhino, royal Bengal tiger, Asiatic elephant, wild buffalo, yellow headed turtle and gharial crocodiles. Remarkably, the zoo lacks a lion and a zebra both of which it had earlier.
After their death, the zoo has not been able to get them from any country. “Buying and selling of wildlife is not legal. The only way we can bring them here is through the exchange program. But other zoos provide us the rare animals only when they have them in surplus. It is indeed sad that we do not have a zebra and a lion since over a decade now," Koirala said.
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