Students at the entrance to the Himalayan Zoological Park at Bulbulay near Gangtok on Monday. Picture by Prabin Khaling

Gangtok, Oct. 4: The Himalayan Zoological Park housing high altitude endangered wildlife species is set to be upgraded at an estimated cost of Rs 30 crore over the next five years.

The park’s revamp is being taken up as part of the Rs 330.57-crore Sikkim Bio-diversity Conservation and Forest Management project funded by the Japanese International Co-operative Agency (JICA).

“We will use the funds of around Rs 30 crore to set up a rescue centre where any animal captured while transgressing into human habitats will be rehabilitated. Enclosures of the animals will be enlarged and upgraded,” said zoo director Sangay Gyatso.

Spread over 235 hectares at an altitude of 5,840ft, the thickly wooded park has red panda, Himalayan black bear and snow leopard among other animals. The zoo, located 10km from here, has been designed to allow people see high altitude animals in semi-wild environment.

Upgrade of the ex-situ conservation (shifting an animal from the threatened habitat to a new area for its protection under human care) at the park is also part of the project. In fact, the zoo has been showing good results in captive breeding of red pandas and the animal’s population at the facility has risen to 11 now. They are kept in three separate enclosures.

Red panda, the state animal of Sikkim, figures in Schedule I of the Wildlife Protection Act because of its dwindling population.

Gyatso said offices and an interpretation centre would also be set up at the park. “We will also make efforts to bring in more high altitude species like munal, tragopan and blue sheep to the zoo so that the facility will become a perennial tourist attraction. We have only 12 species right now,” he told a group of students who had come to the park as part of the weeklong wildlife week celebrations organised by the forest department.

The students were excited to see the rare animals. “We are lucky,” gushed a boy when he saw a Himalayan black bear rumbling over dry grass in its 15000sqm enclosure.

Zoo keepers stationed at each enclosure briefed the children on the habitats and other details of the animals.

An agreement to implement the bio-diversity conservation project was signed between Indian and Japanese governments earlier this year. The Sikkim forest department is the nodal agency of the project that spans over 10 years.

Funds from the JICA will be spent on the scientific mapping of wildlife species and to derive ways to improve the economic status of the people living on the fringes of forests. Some other features of the project are sustainable bio-diversity conservation, afforestation, eco-tourism and non-consumptive management of the forest.

A butterfly park will also come up in North Sikkim under the project.

Around 150 students from 13 schools in and around Gangtok were invited to the zoo by the forest department.

The red pandas and a female snow leopard, Maliaka, were most liked by the students.