BLUE CROSS:
Captain Sundaram
Founder of the Blue Cross of India
It all started one rainy day in 1959 when Captain Sundaram couldn't just walk away from the two pups struggling to stay afloat in the flooded roads of T Nagar. He took them home-and that gesture marked the beginning of Blue Cross, the animal shelter in his house which at one stage had 60 cats, dogs, goats, bandicoots and also a pair of baby mongooses!
The Blue Cross of India was established in 1959 and registered as a Society under the Societies Registration Act in 1964 to alleviate the suffering of animals. It has grown from small beginnings to become one of India's largest animal welfare organizations, running active animal welfare, animal rights and humane education programmes.
CENTERS:
GUINDY:
Mrs. USHA SUNDARAM, co-founder of the Blue Cross, and her family members have donated a Cattery to the Blue Cross shelters at Guindy. Covering 600 sq. feet, the Cattery is built around trees for the cats to play on and has a covered shelter for them.
Sriperumbudur:
Mr. Sujit L Joseph has generously donated 3.66 acres of land at Kunnam village near Sriperumbudur. This shelter has the unique distinction of being the first post research primate rehabilitation center in India. Monkeys rescued from laboratories are housed here, nursed back to health, and neutered. Later, they will be released into special forest reserves ear marked by the govt. for such animals. Horses from the King Institute which were not fit but were being used for making antivenom serum are also relishing their new found freedom at our shelter.
ARIGNAR ANNA ZOOLOGICAL PARK:
Arignar Anna Zoological Park is situated at Vandalur which is 32 Km away from the metropolitan city of Chennai on the GST Road. On the Eastern side of the road is the zoo over a sprawling area of 602 ha.
The Zoo maintains a viable population of threatened and endangered species of the Western and the Eastern Ghats. It has many threatened exotic species also. The Zoo plays the role of Species Bank and Gene Bank for a wide variety of flora and fauna. It is an Educational Centre and offers tremendous scope for Eco-awareness and conservation education to the public.
| Arignar Anna Zoological Park has a large collection of endangered animals in its list of exhibits.
46 endangered animals of Western ghats and the Indian subcontinent are protected and the zoo is involved in the captive breeding of this endangered species | |||||||||||||||
