Away for 2 yrs, MP’s tiger returns to public eye at zoo

Away from the limelight for almost two years, Bittoo, the wild Royal Bengal Tiger in the National Zoological Park, is finally out in public view. The big cat had been taken away from the main enclosure after it tried to escape by scaling the boundary wall of its ennclosure.

The nearly 12-year-old feline was caught in the wilderness of Bandhavgarh in Madhya Pradesh in July, 2011. After that, it lived in the Bhopal Van Vihar before coming to the Delhi zoo in March, 2014.

In 2014, a white tiger at the zoo, Vijay, killed a man who had fallen in to the enclosure. Soon afterwards, Bittoo climbed a tree and then scaled the boundary wall of the enclosure. Panicked at the thought of another mishap, the authorities decided to take Bittoo away from the public eye.

“This is a wild animal. It is not easy to determine its reaction to public. That is why we had taken it away from the enclosure,” a zoo official said.

Finally, the zoo officials noticed that Bittoo’s behaviour had turned calm. After making some necessary arrangements in the enclosure, they decided to bring the tiger to the main enclosure for a few hours every morning. The big cat …read more