Crowds throng Chhatbir Zoo on New Year

Jan 02, 2020 08:02 AM (IST)

Satinder Pal Singh

Zirakpur, January 1

The New Year celebrations in the town drew crowds to temples and shrines with people enjoying a break as they rung in 2020 with aplomb.

While people descended on temples and gurdwara, tourist destinations such as Mahendra Chaudhury Zoological Park, commonly known as Chhatbir zoo, at Chhat village near Zirakpur too attracted huge crowds as people from all walks of life turned out in large numbers to celebrate New Year.

The zoo today witnessed a footfall of around 8,000 with children and adults enjoying themselves on the first day of the New Year. The rush of visitors started around noon when long queues were seen at the ticket counters. In no time, the parking lot at the gate of the zoo was chock-a-block, said officials. The inflow of people was continuous, leading to parking problems. Visitors were seen parking their vehicles on the roadside.

Rush was seen near the tiger and deer enclosures and the walk-in bird aviary, set up at a cost of Rs 52 lakh and housing different species of birds. Revellers were seen clicking selfies with the animals.

M Sudhagar, field director of the zoo, said, “We got a good response. Around 8,000 people reached the zoo and enjoyed for hours.”

He said better amenities and the two four-year-old Asiatic lions, Gagan and Sawan (twins), which were brought from Indore in October under the animal exchange programme and released in the lion safari for public viewing in December, attracted visitors.

Sudhagar said the zoo had plans to procure demoiselle cranes, chausinga deer, chinkara deer and Asian wolf from the Junagadh zoo in Gujarat under the animal exchange programme.

In addition, Chhatbir Zoo would soon get a dinosaur park with six robotic dinosaurs, two of which will also interact with visitors for which a tender has already been allotted to a private firm. The project is expected to be completed at a cost of nearly Rs 4 crore. Inaugurated on April 13, 1977, by the then Governor of Punjab, Chhatbir Zoo is one of the largest zoos in the country. It is spread over 202 hectares and houses over 1,445 wild animals belonging to 115 species.
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