Lack of veterinarians is the bane of Bannerghatta Biological Park

As the crisis in the Bannerghatta Biological Park (BBP) went from bad to worse, the authorities rushed expert veterinarians from Mysore to attend to the ill tigers, whose numbers continued to increase.

An emergency was declared in the park on Sunday as the number of critically ill tigers rose to 10. The lack of well-trained veterinarians in the

Besides getting the services of additional veterinarians, the park said it was considering expert training for its personnel. The Mysore team included Dr Prayag, veterinarian from the Chamarajendra Zoological Gardens, and four veterinary post-graduate students who have volunteered for the task. 

Besides this five-member Mysore team, there were two veterinarians from the wildlife SOS centre (sloth bear rescue centre), a BBP veterinarian and a consulting veterinarian stationed in the park on Sunday morning.

However, experts said the number of veterinarians in the park was not enough given the gravity of the situation and more trained professionals were needed. They felt that the situation would not have aggravated if there had been enough trained professionals in the park.

According to Dr Thopsie Gopal, advisor for animal emerging infectious diseases in the Asian Nature Conservation Foundation (ANCF), the doctors present in the park might be unable to handle the situation and more trained personnel were needed to handle such a crisis.

A team of six veterinarians from the Institute of Animal Health and Veterinary Biologicals (IAHVB) have been assigned the task of collecting samples, assessing the situation and guiding the BBP staff. But their task is limited to working from outside.

Dr Renukaprasad, director of IAHVB, said: “We assess the samples which come to us and guide the officials on the course of treatment to be administered to the tigers. Since we are not taking care of the animals we do not have much information.’’

The forest department has decided to hire more veterinarians from the IAHVB for the upkeep of the BBP zoo and also to ensure that veterinarians were trained in zoos.

Speaking to DNA, the member-secretary of the Zoo Authority of Karnataka, MN Jayakumar, said that the IAHVB had been asked to get five veterinarians for the park as there were hardly any trained veterinarians available for handling the crisis in BBP. The IAHVB was in the process of choosing the five veterinarians, he said.

Jayakumar also said that he had proposed a six-month internship for veterinary post-graduate students at the park or the Mysore zoo.