After a lion and a lioness at the Arignar Anna Zoological Park in Chennai succumbed to Covid-19, the Tamil Nadu government on Friday constituted a State Level Task Force to provide support and guidance to authorities about the prevention and mitigation of Covid-19 infections in wild and captive animals.
The task force will formulate ways to prevent Covid-19 infections among captive animals in tiger reserves, national parks, wildlife sanctuaries and reserve forests.
It will be headed by seasoned bureaucrat Supriya Sahu, Principal Secretary (Environment, Climate Change & Forests) and will have six members including the Principal Chief Conservator of Forests, Principal Chief Conservator of Forests and Chief Wildlife Warden, and Special Secretary (Forests), Environment, Climate Change & Forests Department.
Additional Principal Chief Conservator of Forests and Director, Advanced Institute of Wildlife Conservation, former IFS officer R Sundararaju, and Wildlife conservationist S. Theodore Baskaran are the other members of the team.
“The task force shall have a close watch on disease surveillance, mapping and monitoring system, vaccination and other important associated departments and publish periodic reports,” a government statement said.
(Published 18 June 2021, 13:37 IST)