JOIN US With the death of a nine-year-old sloth bear Karan on Wednesday, the death toll at the Bear Rescue and Rehabilitation Centre (BRRC) in Bannerghatta Park has touched 22, since January this year.
Noting that Karan was showing erratic food habits and was under treatment since July, Dr Arun A Sha admitted that diagnosis and treatment of sloth bears for tuberculosis had become impossible.
Dr Sha said it was strange that the post mortem results of Karan revealed that his lungs were completely infected, when it had tested negative for tuberculosis.
Hence these tests cannot be relied upon, he added. He also admitted that they were unsure if tuberculosis was spreading among other animals despite careful measures taken to isolate animals displaying the slightest TB symptoms.
On the deaths of bears in the park, Chairperson of Zoo Authority of Karnataka M Nanjundaswamy said that once an animal contracts TB, it was not possible to cure the disease.
“Unlike humans who can be cured of TB, curing animals of the disease is very difficult. Internationally too there is no research on cure for TB among animals. In such cases euthanasia is generally recommended to relieve animals of pain,” he added.
Now, there are 91 rescued bears at the centre.
New facility
Now tourists can enter the Bannerghatta Biological Park through the newly-constructed safari main entrance on the new ring road. The facility was inaugurated on Wednesday.
A numeric camera is fixed at the entrance, which will automatically count the number of vehicles entering the safari range.
R Raju, executive director of the Park, said the new entrance will streamline safari tourism and also check trespassers.
In addition to the safari main entrance, six newly built enclosures for white tigers, ‘Day Crawl’- a natural habitat for tigers, two new enclosures for safari tigers and a landscape garden were inaugurated on the occasion.