Odisha's Nandankanan zoo launches 'adopt an animal' program to conserve wildlife

Marking another affirmative step towards conservation of wildlife in India, Nandankanan Zoological Park in Bhubaneswar has initiated an adoption scheme for its residents. Called ‘Adopt-An-Animal’ programme, the project aims to mobilize resources for animals and promote conservation of vulnerable species.  Elaborating on the same to ANI, Shashi Paul, Director of the park said that the programme was “going really well” and nearly 170-175 adoptions had been done till now.

"We started the scheme in 2008 but it couldn't pick up  much due to some issues. We made changes and this year the programme is going on very well. A total of 170-175 adoptions have already been done and we received Rs 22-23 lakh. 60 per cent of adoptions are from Odisha itself," he added.

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Boy adopts Tiger on birthday

This comes as  a 12-year-old boy adopted a Royal Bengal Tiger in Nehru Zoological Park, Telangana. Chinmay Siddharth Shah, who is a student of class 7th, visited the zoological park where he handed over a cheque of Rs 25,000 to zoo officials to formally adopt the beast named 'Sankalp’. As per ANI, Sankalp has been adopted for a period of three months.

In an official release, the zoological park mentioned that Chinmay along with his father Siddharth Kantilal Shah visited the office of the curator and handed over the cheque to A Nagamani, Deputy Curator Nehru Zoological Park, Hyderabad. On the same day, Havisha Jain and Vihaan Atul Shah adopted nocturnal animals, and small birds were adopted by sisters Preksha, Priyal, Dhwani and Bhakti Nagda who handed over a cheque of Rs.5,000 each.

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