Stray dogs raid Delhi zoo, leave 4 chinkara dead

NEW DELHI: Stray dogs entered the Delhi zooon Tuesday night, got into the enclosure for thechinkara and killed four of the fleet-footed antelopes. The dogs, two in number, were captured on Wednesday morning.

Zoo sources said the chinkara, a relatively small animal also known as the Indian gazelle, were bitten in the neck, head and shoulder. All four died of shock. The carcasses were discovered in the morning.

Officials are not sure how the dogs entered the premises. "It is possible that they came from the Sunder Nagar-side of the zoo, along with vehicles carrying supplies. Those come at night," said an official, adding that the zoo will conduct a probe into how the dogs got in.

The antelopes were in an enclosure on one of the main roads running through the zoo, close to where the elephants are kept. Since they sometimes fight amongst each other, two of them had been locked indoors within the enclosure while four were left outside. These four - one male, two females and a calf - were all killed.

Sources said there are several entry points into the zoo that the strays could have taken, including some from the Purana Qila side. They could have jumped over the wall and slipped in. Once in, accessing the chinkara would not have been hard. The enclosure has wire meshing and a dry moat surrounding it. The dogs could have climbed into the moat and jumped over the wire mesh.

There was a similar invasion of stray dogs several years ago, zoo officials said. But such attacks are hardly unique to the Delhi zoo. In March 1999, three stray dogs killed five deer at the Chamarajendra Zoo, Mysore. In 2010, there were as many as four incidents of dogs attacking deer.

In June, a group of six deer were found dead at the Asola Wildlife Sanctuary and forestry officials believed stray dogs were the culprit. Strays were also thought to have killed a flock of ducks at Lodhi Garden in April the same year. In yet another 2010 incident, two dogs entered the zoo in Rajkot, attacked one deer and frightened another four to death.

A deer park set up in Meham, Haryana for the purpose of conservation, had the exact opposite effect. Stray dogs killed 14 deer in two separate incidents, leading to the closing of the park. The most recent attack was reported in February 2011, when two stray dogs entered the Hyderabad zoo and ate two deer.