A month ago, the bomb detection and disposal squad of the State Special Branch of the Kerala Police here received an unusual request. The city zoo needed its support to ensure that its animals were safe.
The zoo had repaired the iron fencing of the enclosure housing African Cape buffaloes (Syncerus caffer), a species not seen much in Indian zoos. The enclosure houses a pair of the massive sub-Saharan African bovine, aged 16 and 12 years. The contractor who took up the work had removed the iron scrap that had been left over, but the zoo authorities noticed that small sharp-edged pieces of fencing and needles of welding rods that could not be detected by the naked eye were embedded in the soil and grass.
