Forest Department decides IIT-madras & Raj Bhavan shouldn't be home for deers

[Sabyasachi Patra]

Forest Department decides IIT-madras & Raj Bhavan shouldn't be home for deers. Shifts all deers outside protected areas to zoos in chennai

The Tamil Nadu forest department has started catching spotted deers and blackbucks from IIT-Madra, Raj Bhavan and Anna University, adyar and relocating them to Vandalur Zoo and to the Guindy National Park. According to the forest department, any deers outside the protected areas would be caught and released in the Zoo.

According to the forest department this move is to stop the death of deers either from road accidents, gangs of street dogs as well as possible poaching. "They usually feed on food waste dumped in garbage bins. Some of them eat the plastic with which the food is wrapped. The plastic eventually kills the deer," said additional principal chief conservator of forest and Arignar Anna Zoological Park director K S S V P Reddy. "We have found balls of plastic in their intestines during autopsy."


According to an estimate there are about 500 spotted deers in and around Chennai, outside the protected areas. At one point of time, around 50 years back the spotted deers were found in most of the places in Chennai. Slowly with increased urbanization and felling down the trees and bushes, the habitat of the deers decreased and now they were restricted to few places like IIT-Madras, Anna University, Raj Bhawan, Adyar, Tambaram etc where they used to provide great joy to the people. The state government has allocated Rs 44.73 lakh to translocate and rehabilitate them. Officials plan to relocate at least 150 more deer by the end of March 2015.

Personally I had much joy photographing a leucistic black buck in IIT-Madras. Presence of these herbivores along with many birds in these places were sufficient to inculcate love and appreciation of our wildlife. Unfortunately, the forest department is putting an end to that.

Deers multiply fast, if there is no poaching. These deers have been living for generations together in these places. They were born there and living for a long long time. If some of them died due to consumption of plastic wrapped food, then there should have been a cleanliness campaign. Why these deers have to be made homeless and forced into prison because people throw garbage? #BornFreetoZoos

[Abhishek Jamalabad]

Sounds absurd. Sad to see that they are actually tackling the victims rather than the culprits. There are measures that could be taken to ensure the well-being of the wildlife in these places, which would in turn lead to healthy wilderness areas with some degree of protection and recognition. Relocating them will only lead to "development" of these areas in the future.