GUWAHATI, June 19 - The Assam State Zoo cum Zoological Garden will soon get a couple of giraffes.
The Central Zoo Authority has approved an exchange programme between the State Zoo and the Sanjay Gandhi Biological Park, Patna.
Under the programme, the Patna zoo will give a female giraffe, three gharials and three swamp deer. In return, the State Zoo will give away a rhino, a black leopard and eight sangai deer. A lone giraffe in the State Zoo had died in 2014.
Forest officials admitted that the giraffe and the chimpanzee are the main attractions of a zoo, and the State facility had suffered due to the absence of both the animals for a long time. Zoo DFO Tejas Mariswamy said the State Zoo will also get a male giraffe from Mysore.
�The one which will come from Patna is a female. The idea to bring the couple from different families is that their offspring will be better,� he said.
Though the date for the exchange programme is not finalised, it is likely to take place in September-October.
