India, a country that often makes headlines in a Human-Wildlife conflict has seen a rare bonding between a Human and solitary predators.Savitriamma, a 46-year-old employee is like the motherly figure to many animals in the Bannerghata Biological Park, which is located near Bengaluru in Karnataka.She is a caretaker to the orphaned leopard cubs and shares a very special bond with them.She joined work at the biological park on compassionate grounds after her husband died in 2002.According to a media report, she started as a cleaning staff member. Later, she was shifted to the zoo hospital as a caretaker when officers noticed her ease with different animals in the park.Once she enters the cage, she gets surrounded by very different surroundings as the cubs into the cage, come near her and start meowing.She does all the usual work of a caretaker such as feeding them, getting them to defecate, massaging them, and putting them to sleep.The initial months are very crucial for the cubs. After six months they are shifted to the safari area which was a heartbreaking moment for Savitriamma and for other caretakers of the hospital.”I feel like crying when I think about having to send them to a new place. I worry about how the others will take care of these animals,” she said in a media report.”So, the day they are relocated I don’t even go to that side. I get really tense, but I still don’t go visit them,” she added.As per a 2023 report, The Bannerghata Biological Park is 731 hectares and has 2,300 animals belonging to 102 species.Many of the animals at the biological park were rescued from life-threatening situations and were then rehabilitated here.This hospital receives animal cubs from various parts of Karnataka, most of whom cannot survive on their own due to injuries or the loss of their mother. Sick or injured cubs are kept in isolation and provided with medical care.The zoo hospital is equipped with a state-of-the-art laboratory. It also has an operating theatre, radiology lab, and postmortem facilities.These advanced facilities make Bannerghata Biological Park one of the few zoos in the country offering multi-specialty veterinary services.Savitriamma has nurtured nearly 80 cubs from different animals. As a result of the exceptional care and treatment provided by the veterinary team and caretakers, more animals are now being sent to Bannerghatta for rehabilitation.
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