Punjab zoo animals beat the heat with ice, desert coolers

With the day temperature soaring past 40 degrees Celsius, ice blocks, desert coolers, and special sprinklers keep cool the animals at the Mahendra Chaudhary Zoological Park here, one of the largest in northern India. The zoo authorities are regularly spraying cold water on the big cats and providing ice to the sloth bears and the Himalayan black bears. For mammoth mammals like the elephant and the hippopotamus, the pools inside their enclosures are filled with water. Special sprinklers have been installed to give them cool comfort. “This time of the year when there is abnormally high temperature a special attention is being paid on their diet, hygiene and to protect them from scorching heat,” zoo field director Manish Kumar told a news agency.