The common langur that had grabbed the city’s attention this past month after its escape from the city zoo was finally caught on Thursday.
The female langur was captured from a centre of Goethe Zentrum at a deemed-to-be-university nodal office near the DPI.
The primate that had proved elusive for days had been camping on the campus for the past two days. Like always, zoo keepers deployed to track its movements had been leaving food for it.
Trapped in a palm
It had climbed a coconut palm on Thursday, but there was no other tree nearby for it to jump on to. The only option for the langur was to climb down or enter the building where the German study centre occupies two floors.
While one of the keepers waited at the bottom of the coconut palm to grab the animal if it climbed down, another keeper left fruits for it inside a classroom in case it entered the building. Soon, the langur entered the classroom. The keepers who had tied a rope to the classroom window pulled it close, trapping the animal. It then headed for an adjacent bathroom and tried to escape through the ventilator, but the keepers grabbed its tail and then using a net grabbed the animal.
Anti-rabies vaccine
The animal was then taken to the zoo where the veterinarian Jacob Alexander conducted a preliminary examination. Further investigations will be held and the langur administered an anti-rabies vaccine before it is released into its enclosure.
The langur, brought from Sri Venkateswara Zoological Park, Tirupati, on June 5, had made good its escape while it was being released into its enclosure in a trial on June 13, ahead of a formal release by Minister for Zoos J. Chinchurani. After a day spent in the Museum-Nandavanam area it had returned to the zoo. Zoo officials then hoped that the animal would remain there, especially as its mate was within sight.
Escape route
However, after a couple of days moving around the zoo and museum compound, it headed towards Mascot Hotel, CSI cemetery, then LMS, Public Library, Taj Vivanta, Government College for Women, All India Radio, IB office, before reaching the deemed-to-be university compound.
All these days, two or three zoo keepers were tracking the langur’s movement, and giving it fruits and so on to ensure it did not go hungry and was used to their presence.
However, the monkey’s presence at various places also drew the public, leaving the zoo authorities worried that the animal instead of returning to the zoo would instead move away in search of quiet. The Minister too had insisted that the animal would be left undisturbed and no measures such as darting would be adopted to capture it.
