The Postcard
A postally unused postcard bearing no publisher's name. The card, which has a divided back, was printed in Saxony.
Zoological Gardens, Alipore, Kolkata
The Zoological Gardens, Alipore (also informally called the Alipore Zoo or Kolkata Zoo) is India's oldest zoological park (as opposed to Royal and British menageries), and is a major tourist attraction in Kolkata, West Bengal.
It has been open as a zoo since 1876, and covers 18.811 ha (46.48 acres). It is best known as the home of the Aldabra giant tortoise Adwaita, who was reputed to have been over 250 years old when he died in 2006.
It is also home to one of the few captive breeding projects involving the Manipur brow-antlered deer.
The zoo is one of the most popular tourist attractions in Kolkata, and draws huge crowds during the winter season, especially during December and January. The highest attendance to date was on the 1st. January, with 110,000 visitors.
History of the Zoological Garden
Both east and west of the roadway leading from the Zeerut bridge were untidy, crowded unsavoury slums. The Calcutta Zoo was built on the site of these slums.
A very large share of the credit for the establishment of this pleasant amenity resort is due to Sir Richard Temple, who was Lieutenant Governor of Bengal from 1874 to 1877.
However, long before the scheme assumed any proper shape, Dr. Fayrer in 1867 and Mr. L. Schwendler (known as the 'Father of the Zoo') in 1873 had strongly urged the necessity of a Zoological Garden.
The visit to Calcutta of His Majesty King Edward the Seventh, then Prince of Wales, was seized upon as a suitably auspicious occasion, and on the 1st. January 1876, the gardens were inaugurated by His Royal Highness. In May of the same year, they were opened to the public.
The zoo had its roots in a private menagerie established by the Governor General of India, Richard Wellesley. The menagerie had been established around 1800 in his summer home at Barrackpore near Kolkata, as part of the Indian Natural History Project.
The first superintendent of the menagerie was the famous Scottish physician zoologist Francis Buchanan-Hamilton. Buchanan-Hamilton returned to England with Wellesley in 1805 following the Governor-General's recall by the Court of Directors in London.
The collection from this era was documented in watercolours by Charles D'Oyly. The famous French botanist Victor Jacquemont. visited the menagerie, and so did Sir Stamford Raffles, in 1810.
Sir Stamford encountered his first tapir there, and doubtless used some aspects of the menagerie as an inspiration for the London Zoo.
The foundation of zoos in major cities around the world caused a growing movement among the British community in Kolkata that the menagerie should be upgraded to a formal zoological garden.
Strength to such arguments was lent by an article in the now-defunct Calcutta Journal of Natural History's July 1841 issue.
In 1873, the Lieutenant-Governor Sir Richard Temple formally proposed the formation of a zoo in Kolkata, and the Government finally allotted land for the zoo.
The zoo was formally opened in Alipore, with the initial stock consisting of the private menagerie of Carl Louis Schwendler (1838 – 1882), a German electrician who was posted in India to assess the feasibility of electrically lighting Indian Railway stations. Gifts of animals were also accepted from the general public.
The initial collection comprised the following animals: African buffalo, Zanzibar ram, domestic sheep, four-horned sheep, hybrid Kashmiri goat, Indian antelope, Indian gazelle, sambar deer, spotted deer and hog deer. It is not known whether the Aldabra giant tortoise Adwaita was among the opening stock of animals.
The animals at Barrackpore Park were added to the collection over the first few months of 1886, significantly increasing its size. The zoo was opened to the public on the 6th. May 1876.
The zoo grew based on gifts from British and Indian nobility - such as Raja Suryakanta Acharya of Mymensingh in whose honour the open air tiger enclosure is named.
Other contributors who donated part or all of their private menagerie to the Alipore Zoo included the Maharaja of Mysore Krishna Raja Wadiyar IV.
Kalākaua, the last king of Hawaii, visited the zoo on the 28th. May 1881 during his world tour.
The park was initially run by an honorary managing committee which included Schwendler and the famous botanist George King.
The first Indian superintendent of the zoo was Ram Brahma Sanyal, who did much to improve the standing of the Alipore Zoo, and who achieved good captive breeding success in an era when such initiatives were rarely heard of.
One such success story of the zoo was a live birth of the rare Sumatran rhinoceros in 1889. The next pregnancy in captivity occurred at the Cincinnati Zoo in 1997, but ended with a miscarriage. Cincinnati Zoo finally recorded a live birth in 2001.
Alipore Zoo was a pioneer among zoos in the 19th. century and the early part of the 20th. century under Sanyal, who published the first handbook on captive animal keeping.
The zoo had an unusually high scientific standard for its time, and the record of the parasite genus Cladotaenia (Cohn, 1901) is based upon cestodes (flatworms) found in an Australian bird that died at the zoo.
Controversy Associated With the Zoo
Pressed for space as Kolkata developed, and lacking adequate government funding, the zoo attracted controversy in the latter half of the 20th. This related to the cramped and unhygienic living conditions provided for the animals, a lack of initiative at breeding rare species, and for cross-breeding experiments between species.
The zoo has also, in the past, attracted criticism for keeping single and unpaired specimens of rare species like the banteng, the great Indian one-horned rhinoceros, the crowned crane and the lion-tailed macaque.
Lack of breeding and exchange programs has led to the elimination of individuals and populations of environmentally vulnerable species like the southern cassowary, wild yak, giant eland, slow loris and echidna.
The death of a great Indian one-horned rhinoceros sparked off speculation about the veterinary efficiency of the zoo. ZooCheck Canada found conditions in the zoo unsatisfactory in 2004. The zoo director Subir Choudhury has gone on record in 2006 as saying:
"We are aware that the animals and birds
are not well in the cages and moats.
Efforts are on minimizing their agony."
The zoo has also been criticized for the quality of its animal/visitor interaction. Teasing of animals was a common occurrence at the zoo, although corrective measures are now in place.
On the 1st. January 1996 the tiger Shiva mauled two visitors as they tried to garland it, killing one. Shiva was later shot and killed by the Indian Army. Another mauling leading to a death occurred in 2000.
The zoo has also been criticized for its animal/keeper relations. A chimpanzee attacked and severely injured its keeper in Alipore Zoo, and numerous other incidents have been reported, including the euthanising of an elephant that trampled its keeper to death in 1963.
In 2001, it was revealed that zoo staff had drugged the great Indian one-horned rhinoceros into relieving itself more often than normal in order to collect the urine and sell it on the black market as an anti-impotence medicine.
The Panthera Hybrid Program
The zoo attracted flak from the scientific community because of cross breeding experiments between lions and tigers to produce strains like tigons, and litigons.
The zoo bred two tigons in the 1970's – Rudrani (born in 1971) and Ranjini (born in 1973). They were bred from the cross between a royal Bengal tiger and an African lion.
Rudrani went on to produce 7 offspring by mating with an Asiatic lion, producing litigons. One of these litigons, named Cubanacan survived to adulthood, stood over 5.5 feet (1.7 m) tall, measured over 11.5 feet (3.5 m) and weighed over 800 pounds. Cubanacan died in 1991 at the age of 15. It was marketed by the zoo as the world's largest living big cat.
All such hybrid males were sterile. Quite a few of these creatures suffered from genetic abnormalities and many died prematurely.
Rangini, the last tigon in the zoo, died in 1999 as the oldest known tigon. The zoo has stopped breeding hybrids after legislation passed by the Government of India in 1985 banning breeding of panthera hybrids after a vigorous campaign by the World Wide Fund for Nature (then the World Wildlife Fund).
Attractions st the Zoo
Since the 1890's, wild birds have been nesting in large numbers within the zoo.
The zoo displays a large number of crowd-pulling megafauna, including the royal Bengal tiger, Asiatic lion, jaguar, hippopotamus, greater one-horned rhinoceros, giraffe, zebra, and Indian elephant.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the zoo live-streamed virtual tours on Facebook.
The zoo has upgraded its customary checking of large felines after a tiger tested positive for COVID-19 at a zoological garden in New York. Prudent steps have been taken, including the spraying of antiviral medication inside the enormous felines' fenced-in area and in the nursery.
The zoo features a large collection of attractive birds, including some threatened species - there are large parrots including lories and lorikeets, as well as other birds like hornbills, colourful game birds like pheasants, and some large flightless birds like the emu and ostrich.
Layout of the Zoo
The Calcutta Zoo has been unable to expand its 45 acres (18 ha) or modify its basic layout for over 50 years, and thus has a rather dated plan. It contains a Reptile House (a new one has been built), a Primate House, an Elephant House, and a Panther House which opens out onto the open air enclosures for the lions and tigers.
The zoo also features a glass-walled enclosure for tigers, the first of its kind in India. A separate Children's zoo is also present, and the central water bodies inside the zoo grounds attract migratory birds.
The Calcutta Aquarium lies across the street from the zoo, and is affiliated with the zoo.
Breeding programs
The zoo was among the first zoos in the world to breed white tigers and the common reticulated giraffe. While it has successfully bred some megafauna, its rate of breeding rare species has not been very successful, often due to lack of initiative and funding.
One notable exception is the breeding programme for the Manipur brow-antlered deer, or thamin, which has been brought back from the brink of extinction by the breeding program at the Alipore Zoo.
The Adoption Scheme
An "Adopt an Animal" scheme began at the Alipore Zoological Gardens in August 2013 as a way to obtain funding for the zoo. About 40 animals were adopted as of August 2013.
The adopters receive tax benefits, are allowed to use photos of the animals in promotional materials, and get their name placed on a plaque at the animal's enclosure.
Sanjay Budhia, chairman of Confederation of Indian Industry, adopted a one-horned rhino.
Reforms
The zoo is presently downsizing to meet animal comfort requirements laid down by the Central Zoo Authority of India. It has also increased the number of open air enclosures.
A move to a suburban location was also contemplated, but was not undertaken based on the recommendations of the CZAI, which claimed that the Alipore site was of historical significance.
The CZAI also cleared the zoo of malpractices in an evaluation performed in late 2005, even though the zoo has continued to attract bad press.
Ecological Significance of the Zoo Grounds
The zoo is home for wintering migratory birds such as ducks, and maintains a sizable wetland. Since the zoo is enveloped by urban settlements for miles, the zoo wetlands are the only resting spot for some of the birds, and are a focus of conservationists in Kolkata.
However, the number of migratory birds visiting the zoo dropped from documented highs by over 40% in the winter of 2004–2005. Experts attribute the causes of the decline to increased pollution, new construction of high-rises in the area, increasing threats to the summer grounds of the birds, and declining quality of the bodies of water at the zoo.
