Not ready to mingle: Rhino Shiva refuses to leave Mumbai zoo

“Although we put his favourite food in the cage so that he can enter the transport van,he puts one step in and then turns back. As these animals are habituated to go without food for days,he does not have the impulse to step into the van even to eat,” zoo director M Anjankar said,adding it is difficult to coax any animal out of familiar surroundings.

Citing the last time Shiva was to be transported to Delhi,when it took four days just make it to step into the cage,Anjankar said,“We will have to be patient with him and try again tomorrow.”

At least two-dozen attempts had been made so far to find Shiva a mate in various zoos in India and abroad over the past few years,but without much success. Shiva,who was brought from Assam to the popular Veer Jeejamata Udyan in Byculla in 1985,was to be shifted to Delhi this week,after zoo authorities found two female companions in Delhi Zoo.

Earlier,the BMC (Mumbai’s civic agency) had approached zoos in Assam,Tamil Nadu,Bengal and even Berlin in Germany. In 2005,zoo authorities had planned to shift the rhinoceros to the Ranchi zoo after a Bombay High Court directive.

However,following protests by Shiv Sena to not transfer the only rhino in the zoo,authorities had decided against it.

Three years later,in 2008,another attempt was made to bring a female rhino from the Patna zoo,but authorities later refused,citing the Byculla zoo’s poor track record of animal conservation programmes and lack of space for two rhinos.

With the average life expectancy of a rhino in captivity being around 40 years,officials are concerned about 35-year-old Shiva,who has lived alone for a long time.

Another concern is that rhinoceroses need around six months with their companions before they mate.