A pair of tigers and a Malayan tapir, a herbivore native to Thailand, Myanmar and Indonesia, will be new residents of the Alipore zoo.
The animals have been brought from the North Bengal Wild Animals Park, popularly called the Bengal Safari, in Siliguri.
The tigers were brought to the Alipore zoo as part of an exchange programme.
The tapir was found by foresters in a car in Jalpaiguri on February 15. Two men, who police said were smuggling the animal from Manipur to Kolkata, were arrested.
“The court of the chief judicial magistrate in Jalpaiguri ordered that the tapir be shifted to the Alipore zoo for better management and care,” said a zoo official.
Malayan tapir (Tapirus indicus), known as Asian tapir, is the largest of the five living species of tapir. Its shape is similar to a pig. But tapirs are odd-toed ungulates that are related to rhinos.
They have a large white patch around their middles, and black heads and hind quarters.
Animal Diversity Web — an online database of animal natural history, distribution, classification and conservation biology at the University of Michigan — says: “Malayan tapirs are restricted to southern Vietnam, southern Cambodia, southern Myanmar (Burma), the Tak Province of Thailand, the Malay Peninsula, and Sumatra south of the Toba Highlands.”
“Malayan tapirs have large, stocky bodies with a prominent, prehensile proboscis formed by an extended nose and upper lip. Individuals range from 250 to 540kg, with a length of 1.8 to 2.5m and a height of 0.9 to 1.1m. Females tend to be larger than males by about 25 to 100kg. Adults have a dramatic color pattern, with a black front half of their body, white sides, and black hind legs,” the website says.
“The Alipore zoo has a history of having tapirs since 1877 and there are records of successful breeding of tapirs. From 1877 till the 1980s, the zoo had tapirs as important and attractive exhibits,” said Subhankar Sengupta, director of the Alipore zoo.
The two tigers, a male and a female and both aged around three years, were born and bred at Bengal Safari.
The apex predators came at a price.
“We sent two reticulated pythons, two Burmese pythons, four monitor lizards and five barking deer to the north Bengal park for the two tigers,” said Sengupta.
The tigers and the tapir came in ambulances from Siliguri. They left on Sunday night and reached Alipore on Monday afternoon.
“The animals were brought by a team of veterinarians, biologists, animal supervisors and animal attendants,” Sengupta said.
The new arrivals took the number of tigers in the Alipore zoo to seven. “But it is after a long time that the zoo got new tigers. It must be at least 10 years,” said Sengupta.
Visitors can see the new tigers and the tapir from Tuesday.