Quick on feet to tackle virus, forest staff stay healthy
CHENNAI: When the whole world is gripped by coronavirus fear, “All is well” with the state Forest Department. The interesting part is that a team of 20 animal keepers are staying on the zoo premises itself preferring to stay with the animals, avoiding their families for the past two months.
The functioning of government departments like public health, police, education and transport are worst affected due to coronavirus spread, but the Forest Department works are going on well even during the pandemic. The precautionary measures taken by the zoo authorities in the state and the nature of job have set apart the Forest Department from other government wings.
Senior foresters and wildlife NGOs are working as usual deep inside the jungles, where the incidence of COVID-19 is remote, said a senior forest official associated with Mudumalai Tiger Reserve. Further, the foresters rely on the tribal population for its basic field works and this makes them safe from infection.
According to a senior wildlife official at the Arignar Anna Zoological Park, the Vandalur zoo was one of the first zoos in the country to respond to COVID-19
crisis. The biosecurity measures were intensified in March and new protocols were added after the death news of a tiger broke out from Bronx zoo in New York.
“It has been more than 100 days of lockdown and the guard is not lowered till date, making zoo staff free from any zoonotic infections. Every day, thermal screening is done for all the zoo staff and all the vehicles entering the zoo are fumigated inside the disinfectant tunnel. The animal keepers taking care of large mammals like tiger, elephant, chimpanzee and langurs are staying inside the zoo without any outside contact,” the official said adding that the langurs and chimpanzees are closely monitored as the simians and the homo sapiens share similar physiology.
“As the state has completely closed the zoos, sanctuaries and tourist facilities in the reserve forests, the department’s interaction with the public has reduced by 99 per cent. The field staff in all the four tiger reserves and bird sanctuaries are healthy, when compared with other government workers. We are breathing fresh air without masks,” conservation scientist A Kumaraguru of Sathyamangalam Tiger Conservation Foundation said. State should provide more research funding for people studying zoonotic infections, he added.