Ex-Situ updates - Central Zoo Authority

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They also imported and exhibited marmosets, including the Golden Marmoset, Spider Monkey, Woolly Monkey and others. Mostly they kept only herbivorous animals – no carnivores, a principle that was maintained for the most part. Unlike most people of wealth and leisure of those days, the Mullicks were not shikaris. They never hunted animals for food or trophy but trapped for their collection and engaged trappers to do so. Purnendro used to accompany them when he was young, learning much about wildlife from these men. Purnendro used to tame Red-vented Bulbuls when he was a youngster. He would tie a supple but strong thread around the body of the birds and keep them, leaving off feeding them for a day or two. Then he and his friends would put two hungry birds together with food in front of them so that they would fight. He also had a trained hawk whose eyes he covered with a hood; when unhooded, the hawk would go after pigeons. During his childhood, Purnendro’s father knew the Superintendent of Calcutta Zoo, Mr. R. B. Sanyal. Purnendro used to go with his father to the New Market Bird Shop or to the zoo, where they often ran into Sanyal. Purnendro remembered two incidences when his father corrected Sanyal. Sanyal had put a heavy chain on a cockatoo, and Mr. Mullick told him that he should take it off and put a lighter chain on to avoid injury to the bird. Another time, Sanyal was feeding a deer small pieces of vegetables that he cut off with a knife. Mr. Mullick told him that he shouldn’t feed like that as he might inadvertently hurt the deer. Before the implementation of the Wildlife Protection Act, one could catch and keep any animal, regardless of its rarity, and so it was of interest to know what rare animals were kept at the zoo and aviary. Purnendro recalled many animals, such as the Spectacled Monkey from Tripura, a half dozen Hoolock Gibbons, one of which had been trained to do namaskara, and others. He found that the Himalayan species did not do well in Calcutta and so stopped acquiring and keeping 12 Photo credit: : Sally Walker them, but at one point they did get Musk Deer, Serow and Goral. Conversely, pheasants did very well at the zoo, and they kept Satyr Tragopan, Monal Pheasant and Bhutan Grey Peacock- Pheasant. Mullick had a pair of Pygmy Hogs but lost one of them very soon due to their delicate nature. He also kept two pairs of Hispid Hares for some time, 18 months or two years, and they even bred a few times, but the babies did not survive. Purnendro’s wife liked to keep Lesser Pandas in the house. He also kept a Binturong that was very sturdy and easy to manage. At one time or the other they had nearly all the species of bear, Himalayan Bear, Brown Bear and Sun Bear. They also had Golden Langur, Nilgiri Langur, Lion-tailed Monkey and Slow Loris. Punendro related some information about the upkeep of some of the rare animals at the Marble Palace Zoo. “For Slow Loris”, he said, “one must give it some good protein as well as fruits and vegetable matter. Daily chicken pieces are suitable but only soft, boney pieces, like the back or the wing. Once a week the Slow Loris should have a small live sparrow, or munia bird. They need a semi-dark and private place for their living quarters as they are very shy. Slow Loris also should have plenty of branches close together so they can reach from branch to branch since they can’t jump. “Hispid Hare is a delicate animal”, he said. “We fed the usual things, e.g., green grass soaked gram, a little milk bread, and vegetable skins. For living quarters they must have privacy. We constructed a very long cage for them so they could get far away from visitors and in addition to that we fixed a partition of bamboo screen. They require sand for digging also”. “Red Panda is very delicate. They have a delicate stomach. We gave cornflakes and milk, adding a little Complan or Farex”, he said. “They also need some fruits and dried dates (which they relish), sugar cane, papaya, banana and all-important bamboo leaves twice a day. The bamboo leaves help clean their digestive system. For Red Pandas, or any animal whose natural habitat is a cold climate, one must be very careful when taking it into captivity as it cannot bear the cold when captive. People think because it comes from a cold place that the cold season will not bother it, but in the wild, the animals move about from place to place and keep warm with exercise. In captivity they can’t heat their body by exercise so there has to be some source of warmth for them”. Purnendro described some of the methods local trappers used for capturing these wild animals. It seems they used to keep seven bamboo poles or sticks, each one fitting into another one so that if all seven were used a very long pole could be made. At the end of the pole was a piece of split bamboo in a “V” shape. There were different sizes of these for different sizes of birds. What the trappers would do was to put gum on the inside of the “V” and put the pole up a tree and catch the bird inside the “V”. The idea was not to actually hold the bird with the tool but to deposit enough gum on his wings so that he could not fly properly. “It is an art because if you put too much gum, the bird is too heavy to fly and it will fall like a stone. If you put too little, the bird will just fly away. If you put the right amount the bird will glide down like [a] parachute. It takes great skill to know just how many sticks to put together for the distance and how to reach up with the pole without
Photo credit: : Sally Walker alerting the bird. Nonetheless it is a good method and the gum is a natural substance and can be taken off without harming the bird. The gum was taken from the sap of the Banyan or Peepul tree that had to be boiled for days until it was the right consistency. Another method for catching birds was to use a net on the end of pole”. The trappers also had a net method for capturing monkeys. They would tie a monkey in the middle of a big net that was spread out in the bushes or on the ground. Then they would put some fruits all around and give some to the monkey tied there. Soon many monkeys would come, and when the net was full the trappers would pull it tight like a drawstring bag and catch the monkeys. In the mountain areas, trappers caught game birds using a long thread with a sort of noose about every six inches. They would spread some seeds around, and when a bird came to eat the seeds he would usually step into one of these nooses and the trapper could pull it tight and catch the bird. What they used for small cats was an iron trap like a mouse trap, which would catch the leg. The trappers stayed close by and watched carefully. Immediately on hearing the sound of the trap they would throw a gunny bag over the animal, release the foot and shift the animal to a bamboo cage. It is only if you leave the animal to struggle that injury occurs using such traps. Also, if the tail gets caught inadvertently instead of the foot, then the animal gets injured. “Trapping does not cause many deaths”, he said. Later, while keeping the animals, there are deaths, but not while trapping. I asked Mullick if many wild animals were being trapped and exported live from Calcutta before the passage of the Wildlife Act. “Yes, many,” he said. “There was dealer named George Monroe who exported many elephants, possibly 100 elephants per year from Calcutta port alone up to 1972, when the Act was passed. Also other animals as well, e.g., small cats, pandas, pheasants, etc. were trapped in large numbers for export as well as for their skins”. On my comment that the Black-necked Storks looked very shiny and healthy, he said, “That is because we feed them live or very fresh fish. Most of the other zoos feed stale fish or even meat, but for them to thrive they must have live or very fresh fish”. I asked about the Rosy Pelicans wandering freely about the grounds. “It seems a certain female laid her eggs in all kinds of places, including in the bushes beside a fence right on the busy road”, he said. “I had to put up metal sheets so no one could reach in and disturb the eggs. While the eggs were there, she hardly left even for a second. When the female had to be away, the male stood sentinel just like the changing of the guard. When these pelican chicks hatch, they are just skincoloured, with no down or feathers. In a few days they get soft feathers that are completely black. They don’t start to turn colour for several months, until they are a year old and become white. They don’t become a full rosy colour Photo credit: : B.S.Bonal until they are two years of age. Reuben David visited my zoo and was so very happy to see my pelicans. He said only about a half dozen places were breeding this species of pelican”. “What other famous people have visited your zoo that you could tell us about?”, I asked. “Yes, one will interest you – that’s Gerald Durrell. He visited here some time in the sixties. A dealer named Demmer brought him, and I helped them to obtain Gaur. I gave him one of those terracotta baby Gorillas like you saw on the table outside”. One has to appreciate the work of the Mullick family and their love of wildlife. The Marble Palace Zoo was nurtured by persons who admired and cared deeply about the dramatic and beautiful interesting creatures from India and around the globe. Much thought went into the keeping and display, as is obvious from Purnendro Mullick’s descriptions. The Marble Palace Zoo is a living icon in zoo history, reminding us of how zoos began and how far we have come. Its value as a viable animal facility in the present context may not be much, but the zoo is an excellent medium for explaining the origin and development of zoos and natural history in Calcutta, India and the world. Some years ago the Central Zoo Authority had decided to refuse recognition to the Marble Palace Zoo, which distressed me very much, although I could not argue that it was up to standard. It definitely wasn’t. In earlier articles and book chapters that I had written about the zoos of India, I had reported that the Marble Palace Zoo was refused recognition by the CZA, and so it pleases me a great deal to be able to report that the case is now in abeyance. The current Member Secretary has visited the zoo and seen the potential of its heritage value and encouraged the Mullicks to prepare a master plan and bring the zoo up to a standard that could be approved for recognition. The author is the Founder/Director of Zoo Outreach Organisation, Coimbatore 13
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