Chennai: The interior of a truck was designed to provided an ambience resembling a forest and with feed kept inside it, about 10 deer which began their journey from here on June 19 reached the Kalakkad Mundanthurai Tiger Reserve next day.
This is the first time the state forest department translocated the spotted deer traversing 700 km, breaking the record of Madhya Pradesh which had shifted the deer for a distance of 300 to 500 km. "Owing to the dwindling population in the KMTR and with the animals becoming victims of road accidents here when they strayed out of forest areas, forest minister Dindigul C. Srinivasan ordered the shifting of the deer from the Guindy National Park here to KMTR," according to the forest department.
Further, it was found that the deer which strayed into the city suburbs ate solid waste, left-over food and plastic carry bags. A postmortem of deed deer revealed 6 kg of polythene bags in its stomach. Hence, this was another reason for moving the deer from the Guindy National Park in the city.
The translocation has been challenging and the officials had to rope in the assistance of experts to design the truck interior. Apart from ensuring appropriate temperate inside, the truck was stopped frequently to provide water to the deer, says Sanjay Kumar Srivastava, principal chief conservator of forests. As these animals are sensitive the officials had to place a ramp from the quarantine into the truck and they walked into the vehicle. On June 20 evening after reaching the KMTR, they were left into the reserve.
The forest staff has been instructed to monitor the animals for a month till they get adopted to the new environment. There are over 1,500 spotted deer in and around Chennai. According to the forest department about 150 deer have been captured, and of them 50 per cent have been released in the nearby reserve forests and the Guindy National Park. The rest of them have been kept in quarantine to be released.
