Zoo animals get treat of Lays, Minto Fresh and Kurkure

Zoo animals get treat of Lays, Minto Fresh and Kurkure
New Indian Express

BANGALORE: These days wild animals at the Bannerghatta Biological Park also get to enjoy potato chips, mint sweets, biscuits, chocolates, chewing gum and sometimes even cigarette butts.

The safari vehicles, though provided with glass cover, have a circular holes in the windows through which air flows into the vehicles. The visitors to the herbivore enclosures throw foodstuffs to the animals like cheetal, peafowl, sambar and neelgae.

These animals often come close to the van attracted by the food thrown at them. Visitors try to get the tigers to get near them by such offers.

Around 11 safari vehicles of Karnataka Tourism Development Corporation (KSTDC) take visitors inside the park and there are several shops that sell eatables at the entrance of the safari grounds.

There is no restriction on people from buying these eatables, though the entire park has been declared a ‘plastic free zone’.

Assistant Conservator of Forests of Bannerghatta Biological Park B Jairam said that the department has often requested the KSTDC to ban tourists from taking food in plastic covers inside the park. “The park area should be maintained plastic-free at any cost,” he emphasises.

Secretary for Tourism I M Vittal Murthy admitted that there was an increase in plastic waste in the park.

“We will ensure that plastic materials are not allowed inside the safari,” he said.

The Bannerghatta park, situated 22 kms from Bangalore, draws around 12 lakh visitors per year.

Spread across 731 acres, the biological park includes the lion safari, tiger safari, sloth bear safari, herbivores safari, besides a zoo which houses number of wildlife species, and birds.

The butterfly park awaits inauguration.

While the plastics choke the ecology of the area, the wild animals are forced to eat harmful oily food.

“Animals cannot digest fried food, which affects their digestive system,” said Dr Prakash Kumar.