Vizag Zoo animal keeper enters bear enclosure to clean, gets mauled to death
Noticing the attack, the zoo authorities acted promptly and managed to send the bear back to its enclosure
By Newsmeter Network Published on 27 Nov 2023 11:55 AM GMT
Visakhapatnam: In an unfortunate incident, an animal keeper died after he was attacked by a bear at the Indira Gandhi Zoological Park in Visakhapatnam on Monday. The Incident took place around 8 am before the zoo was opened to the public.
The deceased was identified as B Nagesh (23), an outsourcing employee at the Vizag Zoo.
On Monday, Nagesh was allotted duty for the Sloth Bear and Himalayan Black bear enclosure as the animalkeeper.
According to the Zoo officials, at around 1O:3O am, the Veterinary Assistant surgeon on his routine rounds has asked for the sloth bear and black bear keeper from the security guard at the bear section, who reported that he has gone to black bear enclosure for cleaning and then has further gone to the adjacent enclosures and has told security guard to caI the keeper in the meanwhire.
The security Guard, then, has called out the keeper's name but he did not reply, further he asked adjacent enclosure keeper to monitor at his place and gone to the night house where he saw that black bear was sitting at the outer gate of the night house.
Security have noticed that Nagesh Babu was lying on one side of the night house, he was found unconscious and with serious injuries on his head and left area of arm and chest. The entire team including curator have immediately gathered up, and tranquillize the animal and kept inside the enclosure.
"Such an incident never happened. However it is the negligence of the keeper Nagesh who had left all the doors open in the animal night house and gone inside to clean, due to which the animal has come from the day kraal into the night house first and attacked the keeper", tthe official statement said.
"Keepers are always vigilant when it comes to dealing with the wild animals and as per the protocol, every door once opened has to be immediately closed and locked and moreover, there are four doors an a night house and in this case, all doors were found to be open, which led the animal to come out. This animal is generally very friendly with the keeper and even very responsive to the visitors also," said the Zoo official.
