The rescued jungle cat on the Guindy National Park in Chennai Photo | Express
CHENNAI: Three months again, when an deserted jungle cat that was about five-days-old, and weighing simply 128g, was rescued from Thiruporur and transported to Chennai, it hadn’t even opened its eyes and possibilities of survival had been minimal. After being hand reared and nurtured for the previous few months, the animal is wholesome, bodily energetic and weighs 1.9kg with all of its wild instincts intact.
Forest officers advised TNIE that the details about the deserted newly born jungle cat was acquired on January 14 from a couple of folks belonging to the Irula tribe in Thiruporur. Locals mentioned that there have been poachers lurking within the space and the mom could have been both killed or it deserted the kitten as a result of menace notion. Jungle cats and civet cats are poached for his or her meat.
“We waited for some time to see whether the mother would come to take the kitten. Time was running out since the kitten was hardly a few days old and would not survive without the mother’s milk. So, a decision was taken to shift it to Besant Memorial Animal Dispensary in Chennai for intensive care as the Guindy Children’s Park was undergoing renovation and a lot of construction was happening,” a forest official mentioned.
Shravan Krishnan, managing director of Besant Memorial Animal Dispensary, mentioned the kitten was too young for it to eat common milk. “So, we had to import Kitten Milk Replacer, which is equivalent to mother’s milk, from the United States. The cat responded well and showed signs of improvement in 7-10 days. Slowly, we started giving cat’s food, releasing rats etc. for it to hunt.”
Chennai wildlife warden Manish Meena advised TNIE that the jungle cat was moved right into a particular enclosure on the Guindy Children’s Park. “So far, it is doing fine. In the next few months, we will try to acclimatise the animal to a near natural environment by feeding it with food and water available at the Guindy National Park. Eventually, it will be soft released in the forest area of the park where there is already a local population of jungle cats.”
