Itanagar, July 5: After Arunachal Pradesh created conservation history last year by captive breeding of hoolock gibbons for the first time in the world, Delhi Zoo is trying to emulate the feat with the help of the Biological Park here.
“After the first successful captive breeding of hoolock gibbons here last July, we are sending a five-year-old male hoolock gibbon to Delhi Zoo. The director of Delhi Zoo, D.N. Singh, has evinced interest in a captive breeding programme,” the head of Biological Park and the man behind the successful breeding, Jikom Panor, said.
Under an animal exchange programme, the Itanagar park will get a pair of emu, macaw, and a pea-hen.
The Central Zoo Authority instructed Delhi Zoo to make adequate arrangements for the captive breeding of hoolock gibbon considering the torrid weather conditions there.
Singh has also sought Panor’s expertise in running the breeding programme at Delhi Zoo.
It was in July last year that Rukmini, a female hoolock gibbon, gave birth in the confines of the Itanagar park.
The veterinary officer also said the birds from Delhi Zoo and hoolock gibbons were scheduled to be exchanged this month but because of the humid weather conditions, it has been deferred till October.
Panor, who attended a monthlong workshop on Conservation of Endangered Species at Durrell Wildlife Sanctuary in England in August 2006, hit upon the idea to run a hoolock gibbon captive breeding programme at the park here.
In tune with the National Zoo Policy, which came up in 1998, five pairs of hoolock gibbons (out of a total of 15 gibbons from the Delo area) were chosen for the breeding programme.
The population of hoolock gibbons is facing a serious threat because of habitat loss, rampant poaching, mindless hunting and ginger cultivation.