Waiting for hours in front of booking counters at Nandankanan Zoo will now become a thing of the past after online booking of tickets through WhatsApp was launched on Wednesday by the Odisha Forest, Environment and Climate Change minister, Pradip Kumar Amat. The system will immensely ease the ticket booking process for visitors coming from afar.
Moreover, visitors will now find a new species of monkey in the zoo, as the Minister inaugurated a newly-built enclosure for Hoolock Gibbons, on the premises of Nadankakan Zoological Park at Barang in Cuttack.
Sources said four Hoolock Gibbons, brought from Mizoram and Itanagar, were released into the enclosure-59.
Notably, Hoolock Gibbon, the only tailless ape found in the northeast of India, is also native to eastern Bangladesh, north-west Myanmar, and south-west China. The tailless primate has been listed as an endangered species under the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List.
Inaugurating the enclosure as well as launching the online ticket booking facility through WhatsApp, Amat said, “We have taken another step forward as several new animals were introduced in the zoo. Apart from their enclosure, other infrastructure projects including staff quarters were unveiled. All such developmental activities will be carried out in the days to come. I hope Nandankanan Zoo will be developed into a world-class zoo.”