After 48 hours, there is no single clue about the pair of owls stolen from the zoo at Gulab Bagh on Monday night of 14^th feb , though the zoo authority has suspended the security guards and made an investigation committee following the consequences but unfortunately no fruitful results yet.

No one knows that those fateful owls have an interesting story too. One year ago they were rescued by Sharad Lodha, an ardent wild life lover and a businessman based in Udaipur from the hands of some villagers near Gogunda. He handed over them to a wild life conservative Suhail Majboor who then gave those owls to Gulab Bagh Zoo authority.

After that, Sharad regularly visited the zoo to reassure those beautiful birds which made a deep impact on his heart.

The bad news of 14^th Feb. has distressed him and he contacted many people to know about the incident. Now, he is having only one question: Who’s responsible for the lost of those owls which he’d rescued once?

Certainly no one is there to answer him. Sharad Lodha ( in photo below with owls he rescued in 2010) narrated the rescue story to me:

“On April 30^th 2010, I along with one of my cousins was coming back to Udaipur from Gogunda, we went there for some work. While driving towards Udaipur we saw some 20-25 people standing on the side of the road, we stopped by to see what’s going on. It was very surprising to see pair of owls was in hands of a man, I was sure that they were going to kill those birds. I interfered and asked them to give those owls to me, after some argument I took out whatever cash I had in my wallet and handed to the man having owls, he gave those owls to me and we rushed from the spot.

After reaching Udaipur we went to wild life conservator Suhail Majboor’s house and gave him those owls. He assured me the safety of those birds which were looking scared and baffled with the new environment.

Those owls were still small and I think newly born but big in size, nearly 750 gms each. I don’t know their species but I am sure that they were endangered ones.

I only know how much risk I took to save those birds and now after one year they again went lost or might have been killed due to lack of security and concern. I am deeply hurt with the incident”

There are number of irregularities in the only zoo of Udaipur but such incident has ashamed the community of the city’s wild life passionates, it would be fuzzy to say anything else but it clearly shows how much concerned authorities are about the animals of a “dying zoo” which once had more than 300 animals now comprising of only few hundreds.

Rahul Bhatnagar the chief wild life officer said that “the FIR is registered and we have suspended the on-duty security guards, we also made a special committee to investigate the case, V.S Rana the wild life conservator from Pali is going to handle it”. He said that it was mottled owl which was given by Suhail Majboor.

By the photographs, these owls don’t look like mottled owls though the important point is what will be the future of remaining animals of Gulab Bagh and how and when will these incidents  stop!

People like Sharad Lodha who put their life in danger to save these animals have no personal benefits except their love for the animals. But for few thousands of rupees these animals were sold and killed every time by some cruel people.

We wish the safety of those owls and pray that they again meet someone like Sharad to save them.