Soumyadeep Das
The Assam State Zoo cum Botanical Garden re-opened for visitors on October 2, after a long pandemic enforced closure. It has since then seen a gradual rise in visitors.
Sri Aswini Kumar, Divisional Forest Officer (DFO) informed that though visitor count is still not as much as the pre pandemic numbers, it is gradually increasing. He said, "Visitors have started coming but compared to pre Covid, I think we have not achieved those numbers yet." He then added "Yes, people are coming, around 700-800 visitors are visiting per day on week days and during weekends it is more than 1000".
"Right now we are just opening up after Covid, we have inaugurated the renovated museum already on 2nd of October during the opening of the wildlife week. Apart from that, the Hydroponics we are already doing. I can say that we are making Giraffe and Zebra enclosures here and we are planning to bring Zebras from Mysuru." said Mr. Kumar, about upcoming projects in the Zoo.
Lastly, speaking about the animal care during the pandemic closure, he said "The Zoo was closed for visitors only but as we are dealing with captive animals, so the regular cleaning and feeding of the animals was continuous." Adding that they did not face many problems during the pandemic, he said "Not that much because we have authorized our suppliers to move during the Covid times and the administration has also supported us with that. They have allowed the vehicles of our feed suppliers to move freely."
Notably, the state Zoo re-opened for visitors on October 2nd during the 67th Wildlife week celebration, after a long gap.
