Spotted deer at Tata Steel Zoological Park. Picture by Srinivas

Jamshedpur, March 18: To check the rising population of deer, housed in Tata Steel Zoological Park, authorities have decided to sterilise male members of the species.

A team of officials, led by deputy director of the zoo Manik Palit, left for Mysore’s Chamarajendra Zoological Gardens at Indiranagar, on Sunday, to check on those deer that underwent vasectomy surgeries recently.

The operation was successfully carried out on 20 males.

“Palit has gone to check the after-effects. He will also assess if the deer are well placed in their recuperation period. We will follow soon,” said M.S. Jain, the director of the zoo.

Currently, the zoo houses a large number of deer — about 40 black bucks, 28 spotted deer and 15 Neelgai.

The biggest concern with members of this species is that they multiply fast.

The average life span of the deer is 15 years with the doe conceiving every year till the age of nine.

Another area of concern is the fact that zoo enclosures are not large enough to accommodate the large number of animals currently residing here.

While the zoo can house five pairs, the remaining live in the Safari — an area especially demarcated at the zoo to accommodate extra animals.

Therefore, zoo authorities had approached the Central Zoo Authority in Chennai to suggest probable ways to keep a check on the increasing numbers of deer.

“They gave us three options — undertaking massive exchange programmes, resorting to sterilisation or segregation of sexes by putting them in separate enclosures,” said Jain.

The zoo authorities decided to choose the second option as they have embarked on a number of exchange programmes with a few leading zoos across the country in an effort to keep numbers under check.

Currently, talks are on with the Alipore Zoo in Calcutta to send three pairs of Barking deer to them and another consignment of a pair of black bucks to the Guwahati Zoo in Assam.