Thiruvananthapuram: CCTV cameras to be installed in Anaconda enclosure

Thiruvananthapuram: Even a day after nine-year-old male green anaconda, Renuka, was crushed to death by its female partner, Angela, the reptile keeper A. S. Harshad is in shock.

Zoo authorities have decided to install surveillance cameras in reptile house which will help them to observe their mannerisms.

When the Sri Lankan Dehiwala Zoo gifted seven anacondas during April 2017 to the Thiruvananthapuram Zoo, they were informed that all of them were females. They were also implanted with a microchip and given the names, Angela, Arundhati, Ganga, Ruth, Ramani, Dil and Renuka.

But later, the city zoo authorities realised that Renuka and Ganga are indeed males which they felt like an added bonanza hoping to see the females giving birth. Angela weighs more than 100 kilos now. "Ever since the seven anacondas were brought from Sri Lanka, I have been taking care of them so diligently," Mr Harshad told DC.

"It is the female anacondas which weigh huge putting their male counterparts smaller in size. Mating has been happening on and off, and this unexpected death came as a huge shock."

Currently, the six common water boas are lodged in two enclosures each with one having four and the remaining two in the second enclosure.

Abu Sivadas, Museum and Zoo director said efforts are on to install surveillance cameras inside the enclosure.

"We do not want to separate the anacondas now just because one of them met with its death," Mr Sivadas told DC.

"The dead anaconda has since been stuffed and moved to Natural History Museum which is currently undergoing a major overhaul at Rs 6 crore expenditure. Museum minister Kadanapally Ramachandran visited it on Tuesday and expressed happiness at how the museum is evolving into one of the best in the country." Thiruvananthapuram Zoo was the second in the country to have anacondas. Sri Chamarajendra Zoological Gardens, Mysore, was first zoo to import green anacondas,