BHUBANESWAR: A two-year-old tigress’ “two-minute taste of freedom” in Nandankanan Zoological Park sent panic among the tourists on Saturday afternoon. The tigress, Megha, managed to sneak out of its enclosure, but immediately afterwards, the zoo officials cordoned off the area and sent it back into its enclosure.It all happened within two minutes, but to prevent any untoward incident, the Zoo officials immediately asked the visitors to leave the area. The incident occurred at about 4.30 pm.Sources said, Megha, the two-year-old tigress, had just been served its food by the designated animal keeper, who is believed to have left the main gate ajar. It is through the main gate that keepers get inside to the crawl, release the tiger to the open area, leaving the food there.The animal keeper had apparently forgotten to bolt the main gate and went to the other side of the enclosure to serve food to two other tigers __ Sneha and Samrat __ who had been separated from Megha.“Megha has a habit of approaching the main gate and pawing it. Out of habit, she repeated the act today and the half-opened gate opened completely,” sources said.The curious tigress stepped out and took a few paces towards the plantations when the Zoo officials spotted it and cordoned off the area. When they screamed, Megha returned to the enclosure, which was immediately bolted.The Nandankanan Zoo officials, however, said the tigress had attempted to come out, but was sent right back in. “It is not a fact that the tigress stepped out of the enclosure. It merely was making an attempt through the half-open gate when it was driven back,” Deputy Director S N Mohapatra said.Way back in 2000, two such incidents had happened. A white tiger had slipped out of its enclosure while being taken into a crawl cage. It was recaptured. On February 13 the same year, a tiger, Naveen, had slipped out of the enclosure and killed a temple priest.
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