Wild animal adoption on a rise in Raipur

Former England captain Kevin Pietersen recently adopted a baby leopard from Raipur. The cricketer posted a video of him feeding the cub from a bottle on his social media and applauded Chhattisgarh government’s efforts to conserve wild animals. Kevin has become the latest celebrity to join the league of people sponsoring zoo animals.

In Raipur, adopting zoo animals is fast catching up as youngsters and wildlife conservationists from the city are adopting zoo animals, where leopard, sambar deer, hippopotamus, tiger among other rare species of birds are kept. The officials said there was renewed enthusiasm about this programme since a lot of celebrities are getting involved in adoption process.

They said the amount they invest would be spent to feed the animals and take care of the medicines. The zoo authorities have a fixed amount for adopting different animals. They have worked out the daily feed expenses for each animal. The animal adoption programme is to create awareness among people and to develop compassion and bonding between human beings and wildlife.

A deer cub tries to reach a feeding bottle kept outside its wired enclosure in Sukna forest————kamalendu bhadra

Zoo head Dr Raman Jha says, “A large number of people, especially college students, come forward to adopt animals and birds at Nandan Van Zoo. Many companies, including public sector undertakings, also contribute regularly towards feeding animals as part of their corporate social responsibility activities.”

The adoption of animals scheme has now become popular even as it has evolved as an effective revenue model to help maintenance of the zoo that gets 20 lakh visitors every year. The scheme was launched in 2009 but became popular only after its revival in 2016.

“I’ve adopted this little orphaned Leopard in Raipur, India. The opportunity came up a c ouple weeks ago and when I saw 40 leopards were killed in Jan in India & 1/3 by poachers, I decided to try and help.” — Kevin Pietersen