Bivas Das with the red panda he supplied to the Darjeeling zoo. A Telegraph picture

Bivas Das of Salt Lake hosts interesting visitors. In April a pair of baby emus spent the night at his place. This month, he had a red panda fly down from Auckland and spend a few days in quarantine at Dum Dum airport before he escorted her to Darjeeling zoo.

Das is a supplier of exotic birds and animals. His company Prathik sources animals from around the world and supplies them to zoos and hobbyists who want them.

The emus had come from hobbyists in Hyderabad and were on their way to Alipore Zoological Gardens. “The birds had arrived by flight at night and could only be passed on to the zoo the next morning, so they spent the night at my house,” says Das, whose children flipped for the flightless birds.

An automobile engineer by training, Das found his true calling in the animal and bird business and changed tracks in 2007. “I grew up in a home with many birds and always wanted to work with them. But the dearth of animal suppliers in India got me to start this company. While the business is rampant abroad, I do not know of any Indian company that deals in this. Those that operate in India are foreign-owned.”

Das acts on behalf of any zoo or hobbyist looking for particular animals. He identifies parties that have the animals and are willing to sell or exchange them. Once the deal is inked, he handles the paperwork and arranges the animals’ transport, food and medical needs throughout the journey.

“One needs authorisation from the chief wildlife warden of the state to deal with animals that are scheduled under the Wildlife Protection Act 1972,” says Raju Das, the zoo director at Alipore.

“This includes tigers, elephants and rhinoceros. Bivas has supplied exotic birds to us in the past. Agents like him do the hard work for us. But we do not usually appoint agents as many of them sell animals illegally.”

In the past Das has sourced birds like Macaws and Turacos to and from cities like Hyderabad, Chennai, Darjeeling and Calcutta.

“India has huge potential in animal trading as the tigers, elephants, deer and peacocks here are in great demand all over the world. I am trying to cast my net wider and pull some ambitious deals through.” One such project is to send a penguin and octopus to Sikkim, which he is working on at present.

Till that happens, Das’s greatest feat is the exchange of red pandas between Auckland Zoo and Padmaja Naidu Himalayan Zoological Park of Darjeeling.

The Kiwis sent a six-year-old female panda in exchange for a two-and-a-half-year-old male panda. Das took the female panda to Darjeeling in a special car packed with food, vets and anything else she might need.

“Incidentally, we named her Durga, as she arrived in Calcutta in October the month of Durga Puja,” Das smiles. Durga is now well-settled in Darjeeling and Das will be taking the male panda from Darjeeling zoo to Auckland on November 2.

“It is a matter of pride to be dealing with red pandas, which are endangered,” he says. While emus cost Rs 25,000 per pair, the red pandas do not have a price tag. “They are endangered so they are priceless. They cannot be bought.” But they can be exchanged and Das is the lucky one doing that.