Officials inspect the enclosures at Belagavi’s Kittur Rani Chennamma Mini Zoo after 29 blackbucks died of suspected bacterial infection (Photo: File)
Belagavi: At least 29 Blackbucks have died of suspected bacterial infection at the Kittur Rani Chennamma Mini Zoo in Belagavi over the past four days including today Sunday, November 16.
The Rani Channamma Mini Zoo, which is spread across 34 acres and 12km from the Belagavi town, is home to around 200 wild animals, including tigers, lions and hyenas. Accorsing to Forest Officials, only Blackbucks were the affected lot due to alleged bacterial infection.
Zoo keepers found around 8 Blackbucks dead on Thursday while another 20 of them fell dead by Saturday night and one succumbed on Sunday evening after wildlife veterinarians were flown from Bengaluru to Belagavi on Saturday to take stock of the situation.
Preliminary investigations revealed the Blackbucks might have contracted this bacterial infection from contaminated water or food or by disease spread by domestic animals like cat, the officials said. Around nine Blackbucks have been relocated to a distant place in the same zoo from the infected enclosure.
Mass death of these Blackbucks - an endangered species protected under the Wildlife Protection Act - has sparked an outrage among Wildlife Conservationists and Environmentalists.
Forest authorities have confirmed that the postmortem revealed the Blackbucks have died because of Hemorrhagic Septicemia (HS) probably caused by Clostridium bacterial infection, which is a significant fatal disease especially in the herbivores wildlife, experts said.
Second round of postmortems of three blackbucks were conducted on Sunday by a team of veterinarians, who arrived from the Bengaluru's Bannerghatta National Park.
The doctors have also taken samples of the food given to Blackbucks for a week with rhem to the Bannerghata National Park in Bengaluru for further investigation. They have also conducted a health checkup of the nine remaining Blackbucks that have managed to survive.
The mass death of 29 Blackbucks at the Zoo has taken a controversial turn after the forest officials informed minister Eashwar Khandre that the deaths were caused by a problem with the food or water contamination hinting at negligence of the Zoo keepers.
Samples from the autopsies have also been sent to the laboratory to ascertain the cause of death. Senior veterinarian Dr. Chandrashekhar said "Samples of visera, kidneys, heart, liver and blood of the dead Blackbucks have been collected. These will be sent to the laboratory, and the report on the cause of the Blackbucks’ deaths is expected by Tuesday (November 18)." He added that the report will be then submitted to Forest Minister Eshwar Khandre.
Member-Secretary of Zoo Authority of Karnataka, Sunil Panwar, said that a team of veterinarians conducted post-mortem examinations this morning and the Zoo has also been inspected. So far, no staff negligence has been found in the incident. Precautionary measures had already been taken after the first eight Blackbucks died. However, he added that if any lapse by the staff is detected at any stage, action will be taken against them.
According to forest officials, these Blackbucks were brought from the Gadag Zoo about four to five years ago. The animals were between four and six years of age. Of the 29 that died, 13 were males and the rest were females, inflicting a major blow to the Zoo’s Blackbuck headcounts and their breeding.
