NO SPARING THE GUILTY IN BLACKBUCK DEATHS IN ZOO

THE deaths of 31 out of 38 blackbucks at the Kittur Rani Chennamma Mini Zoo in Belagavi, Karnataka, are more than an institutional embarrassment.

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They are a moral failure. These animals—icons of India's grassland heritage and listed under Schedule I of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972—died not because Hemorrhagic Septicemia (HS) is unstoppable, but because the authorities ignored every early warning they received. HS is notorious for its speed: a threeto five-day incubation window that leaves no time for bureaucratic dithering. The Indian Council of Agricultural Research-National Institute of Veterinary Epidemiology & Disease Informatics (ICAR-NIVEDI) had issued not one but two 'Vet Alerts' through its AI-assisted National Animal Disease Referral Expert System (NADRES), clearly identifying Belagavi as a district at risk. These alerts were not academic memos.