Kolkata, Dec 26 (IANS): With Christmas falling on a Sunday, nearly a lakh people visited the city's iconic Alipore Zoological Garden, exposing the animals to excessive air and noise pollution.

According to environmentalist Somendra Mohon Ghosh, because of Christmas coinciding with Sunday, the crowd was massive at the Zoo.

Maintaining the eco-friendly ambience should be the prime focus for any zoo authority. But the crowd on Sunday was so high that it was virtually impossible for the zoo authorities to maintain that eco-friendly ambience," he said.

According to him, since the animal ears are more sensitive to sounds than human beings, a constant humming sound because of excessive gathering on a particular day increases the sound-stress level for the animals.

"As per my findings, a gathering of not more than 20,000 people should be allowed at a time considering the total area under the Alipore Zoo. However, on Sunday the crowd was recorded at around 1,00,000. So, the sound-stress level of the animals is well imaginable. In addition to that whistling or blowing horns in front of animal cages causes further irritation for them" Ghosh said.

He lamented that neither the zoo authorities nor the state pollution control board have installed air or sound level measurement gadgets within the zoo premises. "What records on this count are available is because of the individual initiatives by some NGOs working on environment issues. "So, on the basis of information collected by some of them on Sunday the level of tolerable respiratory particles in the air was 40 higher than the desired level. The decibel level recorded in front of the reptile house within the zoo authorities was 80 decibels, which is over double of the permissible level of 40 decibels for animals," he said.

A senior official of the state forest department, on strict condition of anonymity, said that although they are aware of such menaces, unfortunately there is no way for stopping people beyond a number from entering the zoo premises especially on the weekend and on the festive days like Christmas. "Since there are no proper food-court arrangement facilities within the zoo premises, often people enter with outside food and cooked food from home, thus resulting in littering within the zoo premises. However, we make all possible measures to get the packets, cups and plates removed, but our staff strength is too little to give that an effective shape," he said.