Alipore Zoo Director Dr Subir Choudhury said: “The 11-year-old giraffe, born and bred in Alipore Zoo, was loaded on the trailer in a crate. A four-member-team of the Nandankanan Zoo headed by their veterinary surgeon Dr Samanta Roy had come to take the animal. Around 11.30 pm on Thursday, they started their journey.”

A senior officer of Alipore Zoo said: “The Nandankanan Zoo officials should have kept a man on the top of the trailer to watch out for overhead wires, trees and bridges. This is a must for animals like giraffes as their necks jut out of the crates. The second lapse is that instead of contacting us, the Nandankanan team tried to treat the animal themselves and did not take it to a vet.”

He added: “Late on Thursday night, the team contacted Nandankanan Zoo Director A K Patnaik, who in turn called up Choudhury here on Friday afternoon. It was then that the decision to bring the animal to the Alipore Zoo Hospital was taken. By then, nearly 24 hours has passed after the giraffe was hit.”

As soon as the animal arrived at the zoo, Dr Roy and the Alipore Zoo vet Dr S Ghosh began treating the animal, but he died around 9.50 pm on Friday. The carcass was sent for a postmortem and later buried in the zoo. Its tissues have also been collected for a histo-pathological test.

Dr Ghosh said, “Preliminary findings indicate that the animal was electrocuted. There were burn injuries on his neck. There were also symptoms of electrocution in its internal organs.”