The 10 spotted deer from Bangladesh is finally going to Kuwait today after a failed attempt on Saturday, said zoo officials.

On Saturday, die animals were transported to Zia International Airport from Dhaka zoo and loaded on board a Kuwaiti air force plane. But the animals were brought back to the zoo as the Mumbai airport authorities denied stopover of animals at the airport, sources said.

The deer are being sent to Kuwait under an animal exchange programme between the two countries.

After deducting the 10 deer being shipped out to Kuwait and four other killed in vims infection in November, the deer population at the Dhaka Zoo will now stands at 130.

"The 10 deer, after being cap- lured wilh tranquillisers, will be put on observation in quarantine. We usually keep them there for two days to see if they are physically alright," said a Dhaka Zoo official.

"But in tliis case, we did not have enough time due to the incident at the airport. All the commotion of tranquillising the animals, transporting them back and forth and putting them in or taking them out of wooden boxes will put the animals under a lot of .stress,"he added.

"Instead of stopping over in Mumbai, the plane this time will go straight to Kuwait," he said with a sigh of relief.

The Dhaka Zoo was supposed to receive 22 animals from Kuwait and Nepal in 2006 under animal exchange programmes.

So far, Bangladesh is the only country that is sending animals to adhere to the programme. The

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other two countries are yet to follow.

The Dhaka Zoo is laid out on about 186 acres of land where it showcases a wide variety of different species including 55 mammals, 72 birds, 32 fish and a good number of rep tiles.

Its collection of mammals includes elephant, Royal Bengal tiger, cheetah, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, zebra, different species of monkeys and chimpanzees and more. Various species of snakes and crocodiles are on display here under reptile category.

Within a few months, around a hundred more animals from eleven different species including giraffe, zebra, chimpanzee, impala, kudu, elan, lemur, horse, donkey and several species of monkeys will be added to the Dhaka zoo at a cost of around Tk 6 crore.