Two years ago when the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) first proposed the acquisition of six Humboldt penguins for the city’s zoo, the plan was met with considerable scepticism. The zoo had a patchy record of caring for its animals and birds. It didn’t help that the city’s humid temperature was really not penguin-friendly. The BMC had then claimed that the entire project would cost about Rs 21.40 crore: Rs 2.40 crore to buy the flightless birds and Rs 19 crore for at least five years of their upkeep.
The estimated cost has now shot up about fivefold to Rs 106 crore. According to Dr Sanjay Tripathi, director of the zoo, the penguins will be acquired and the enclosure readied by March next year. “The process has already begun,” he says. “And we hope to open it to the public within four months. We will be creating an enclosure with regulated temperature appropriate for the penguins. The penguin exhibits will have pools, water pumps, feeding areas, acrylic glasses for people to view them, and many more things. We are really going to make it very grand.” The tender for the project has already been floated. “It is going to be a zoo which all Indians can be very proud of,” he says.
Many animal welfare organisations are aghast, arguing that not only will the money spent be wasteful but the logistics of it all, from providing the right food to creating an appropriate environment for the birds, will prove unmanageable. “What is required is not to purchase new animals, least of all penguins. But to use the money to improve the facilities and conditions for the current animals and birds in the zoo,” says Sunish Subramanian Kunju, president of the Plant and Animals Welfare Society (PAWS). The zoo, he says, has a disturbing mortality rate. “Besides, how can birds from the cold south survive in a city like Mumbai?” demands Kunju.
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