Kolkata (The Hawk): The repeated fatalities of spotted deer at Bengal Safari Park in Siliguri, West Bengal's Darjeeling district, have caused heads to start rolling.
On Friday, IANS reported that as many as 27 spotted deer perished within a period of just two months at the Bengal Safari Park purportedly due to extreme negligence on part of the safari park authorities. The state forest agency has already announced the transfer of the safari park's director and assistant director before 24 hours had even passed since that time.
State Forest Minister Jyotipriyo Mullick confirmed the moves and claimed that the Bengali Safari Park's director and assistant directors had been fired. He added that he had taken the situation very seriously. To determine the cause of the high number of deer fatalities and to provide solutions to prevent similar tragedies in the future, a full investigation has been requested, according to Mullick.
According to information, Kamal Sarkar, who is now the divisional forest officer for the Raiganj division, has taken over as director of the Bengal Safari Park from Dawa Sangmu Sherpa.
Similar to this, Anuradha Rai, the assistant director of the Bengal Safari Park, has been moved to Darjeeling's planning & working division's records section.
The authorities of Bengal Safari Park were accused of disobeying repeated requests from organisations dedicated to protecting wildlife to repair the fencing walls surrounding the deer enclosure on the property of the safari park. Deer apparently used to escape the enclosure and eat leftover food close to the staff canteen and mushrooms, which led to food illness. This was reportedly because of the broken fencing walls.
An Australian kangaroo named Alex, who was saved from the wildlife smugglers in north Bengal and taken refuge in Bengal Safari Park, reportedly passed away last week from food illness after eating mushrooms.
The number of spotted deer in the park has decreased from over 750 a year ago to under 700 as of this writing, with the majority of deaths taking place over the past two months, according to IANS' report on Friday.
(Inputs from Agencies)