New Delhi:
The officials at the Capital's National Zoological Park had to face some tense moments on Monday morning after a white tigress escaped from her cage and jumped over a 12ft high fence of her enclosure.
The tigress was later captured and put back into her cage. Interestingly, Union environment minister Jairam Ramesh was supposed to visit the zoo for an event related to the World Forestry Day in the evening.
The incident took place at around 9:30am when the caretakers opened the cage of the tigress for its routine exercise. The moment the cage was opened, she came out and jumped over the fence into the adjacent enclosure. The zoo staff then rushed the visitors to safe areas and closed the entry to the park.
"The moment she escaped, a team of 10-15 officials was formed who after two hours managed to render the tigress unconscious using tranquilisers and then put her back into the cage. Luckily neither any animal nor any visitor was hurt," said spokesperson of National Zoological Park, Riaz Khan while speaking to MiD DAY, Talking about the incident, a zoo official said, "The fence of tiger's enclosure is supposed to be 10ft high, but Delhi Zoo has around 12ft high fence. We may now consider making the fence four more feet high to prevent such incidents from happening."