mumbai

Updated: Aug 27, 2019 11:14 IST

Come November, Mumbaikars will be able to sight a leopard pair at Mumbai’s Byculla Zoo, as the zoo authorities have said that the specialised enclosure being constructed for two leopards will be ready for use by October end. Post this, the leopard pair will be put up for public display.

The Byculla zoo had brought in a pair of leopard from Mangaluru’s Pilikula zoo along with a pair of jackals on April 28, 2019 as a part of revamp of Byculla zoo that is ongoing since past couple of years.

As part of the revamp the zoo, authorities had also brought eight humboldt penguins including three male and five female birds from Seoul in South Korea to the Byculla zoo on July 26, 2016, and were put to public display since March 2017.

Currently, the leopards that were brought in April 2019 are in Byculla zoo but are not available for public display considering the enclosure for the leopards is under construction.

Sanjay Tripathi, Director of Byculla Zoo said, “By October end we are expecting the enclosure to be ready for use, and we will put the leopards for public display soon after the same, and with this we are also anticipating to get two pairs of lions for public display by October end from Gujarat.”

Tripathi added, “Currently the enclosure for two pairs of lions is ready but we are in the process to get the two pairs of zebra that are to be given to Jungadh’s zoo in exchange of the two pair of lions. Once, these two animals are added to the diplay, we anticipate the number of visitors to go up.”

According to Byculla Zoo authorities currently they are earning around Rs 7 crore on yearly basis from operational income but the operational expenditure on the maintenance of the zoo is around Rs 20 crore, and due to this they are not even able to meet breakeven.

The entry fee to Byculla zoo is Rs 50 an adult, Rs 25 a child and Rs100 for a family of two adults and two children. The visitor’s traffic at Byculla zoo is anywhere between 7,000 to 10,000 during weekdays, and it goes to around 15,000 during weekends.

As per the data provided by Byculla zoo, it got around 25,46,401 visitors between April 2017 and July 2019 resulting in revenue of Rs 10.57 crore in the same period.