Giraffes in their enclosure at Alipore zoo on Tuesday. Of the 10 giraffes in the zoo, two will be sent to Hyderabad in December Pradip Sanyal

A tiger from Bengal Safari near Siliguri will be brought to Alipore zoo in December to help increase the big cat count.

Alipore zoo has four male and three female tigers. But the males are more than 12 years old and their vitality is on the wane, a zoo official said.

Snehasish, the four-year-old male to be brought from the North Bengal Wild Animal Park (Bengal Safari), is not unfamiliar with Alipore zoo.

Snehasish and Sheela were brought to the city from Nandankanan zoo in Odisha in February 2016. They spent a little less than a year at the Calcutta zoo before being shifted to Bengal Safari in December 2016.

Chief minister Mamata Banerjee inaugurated the North Bengal park in January 2016 to boost tourism. Sheela was then two-and-a-half-years-old, while Snehasis was two.

This May, Sheela delivered three cubs at the North Bengal park. Officials at the park said Sheela and Snehasish had mated a few months ago. Tigers have a gestation period of 100-110 days.

“Snehasish will be brought to Alipore next month. The date has not been finalised, though. The date of his return will depend on the success of the breeding programme,” V.K. Yadav, member secretary of the West Bengal Zoo Authority, said.

Female tigers reach sexual maturity at three years and males around four, Asis Kumar Samanta, director of Alipore zoo, said.

The ideal breeding period is from November to February-March, Samanta said.

Payel, 6, and Rani and Rupa, both 10, are the female tigers at Alipore zoo.

Rupa is a white tigress. There are two white males as well, Vishal and Rishi. Raja and another male are Bengal tigers.

The other male, originally from the Sunderbans, was suffering from a leg ailment and underwent surgery at the zoo hospital in August 2016.

A team of five vets removed a fibroid mass from its right front knee. The tiger had strayed into a village in Kultali, South 24-Paragnas, and was captured by forest guards on December 24, 2015. It was limping and could not hunt properly.

Giraffe

Two giraffes — three-year old Sunny and one-and-a-half-year-old Bunty — will be sent from Alipore to the Hyderabad zoo in the first week of December.

Last October, Nehru Zoological Park in Hyderabad had sent a pair of jaguars and lions and six mouse deer to Alipore. “The giraffes are being sent as part of the exchange programme. It shows how precious captive giraffes are,” Samanta said.

Sunny and Bunty will be carried on a trailer with a large cage. “A vet and keepers will accompany them on the 2,500km road trip to Hyderabad. The long journey can cause a lot of stress in animals,” a zoo official said.

A pair of leopards from South Khayerbari Nature Park, some distance from Jaldapara in Alipurduar district, are expected to reach the Alipore zoo in December.

A white tiger at Alipore zoo Pradip Sanyal