Chennai, Sept 16 ( BPNS)
A vulture that was rescued from the street in Kanniyakumari a few months ago will be transported to the Machia Biological park in Jodhpur in a specially designed vehicle.
The specially designed vehicle will have a spacious plywood cage for the Cinereous vulture (Aegipius monachus) which was rescued from the street in Kanniyakumari and rehabilitated at the Udayagiri Biological park in Kanniyakumari. The cage will also have thick padding to prevent shock to the vulture during transportation.
The vulture will be transported to Machia Biological Park in Jodhpur which is a distance of 2600 km from Udayagiri Park. The journey will commence on September 25 and will take four days to reach the destination.
A researcher from Wild Life Institute of India, a veterinarian from Kalakkad Mundanthurai Tiger Reserve in Tirunelveli, and a forest department staff member who has been feeding the vulture will accompany it on the journey other than the driver.
The researcher has conducted a recce of the places where the vehicle would halt during the journey and the driver is directed by the Udayagiri Park officials that the vehicle should not travel beyond a speed of 50 km. The travel will be done only after the dark and will cover a distance of 600 km per day.
The vehicle will leave on September 25th evening and will reach Hosur by early morning and will halt there. The journey will be resumed the next day and will conclude the journey at a vulture rehabilitation centre in Pune and will remain there till the evening of September 27th and will reach Vadodara the next day morning.
The vulture will be transported to the Machia Biological park in Jodhpur where it will acclimatize for a month and then will be let off at Keru village. This village is noted for dumping cattle carcasses and a large number of vultures gather daily.
A GPS transmitter is already installed on the body of the vulture and will get 24X7 monitoring of the bird.
According to a senior forest official of Udayagiri Biological park, Kanniyakumari, the state forest department has given utmost care to the vulture and that it has regained health after being rescued from the street a month ago.
