The injured tiger at the Alipore zoo hospital in Calcutta on Wednesday. Picture by Sanat Kumar Sinha

Alipurduar/Calcutta, April 30: The central zoo authority (CZA) has asked the Bengal forest department to shift an injured Royal Bengal Tiger to the South Khayerbari rescue centre from the Calcutta zoo.

The big cat was caught after it strayed into a village in the Jharkhali area of the Sunderbans on February 22. The animal had a deep wound on its left hind leg — it was probably bitten by a dog shark — and veterinary officers had to amputate the leg from below the knee.

“The CZA has recently written to the Calcutta zoo authorities to say that the zoo is overcrowded and the tiger needs to be shifted. We will take the tiger to the rescue centre within a month,” said S.S. Bist, the state’s chief wildlife warden of Bengal.

The South Khayerbari tiger rescue centre, 44km from Alipurduar town, was inaugurated in 2005 to rehabilitate circus tigers after performance by the animals was banned.

However, the absence of a veterinary unit at the rescue centre is a matter of concern for the foresters. A veterinarian comes down to the centre from Jaldapara, 11km away, in emergency.

Forest department sources said four circus tigers had died so far in the rescue centre, the last one on Tuesday.

Bist said he had spoken to senior officials of the animal resource development department to provide a couple of veterinarians at the South Khayerbari rescue centre.

“I have plans to send the vets for training in tiger treatment to Nandan Kanan in Orissa which has the largest population of captive big cats. We will also invite experts from outside to hold workshops with our vets,” the official said.

The forest department is currently constructing another enclosure next to the tiger rescue centre to accommodate the leopards now kept at the Madarihat centre.

Contacted in Calcutta, S. Chaudhury, the director of the Alipore zoo, said: “The forest directorate has not told us anything regarding the shifting of the injured tiger. It is not that we do not want to keep the tiger at the zoo although it is overcrowded.”

But Chaudhury also said the zoo usually did not keep injured tigers inside enclosures.