Mangaluru : The Dalmatian pelican, the world’s largest freshwater bird with wingspans that rival that of the great albatrosses, has arrived at the Pilikula Biological Park at Moodushedde from Udaipur on Thursday night. So also did rose-winged parakeet and plum headed parakeets. Soon, the park will also have an added attraction – a white tiger.

Also, with a view to prevent in-breeding and preserve the blood line, under the biological park’s exchange policy, the park authorities welcomed a six-year-old lion, Prashanth, from Udaipur Zoo. With this the number of lions at the park went up to five, of them three being lionesses.

H Jayaprakash Bhandary, director of the Pilikula Biological Park, said the park had exchanged eight-year-old tiger Kumar and six-year-old Afro-Asian lioness to Udaipur in exchange for the lion and the birds.

Bhandary said the tigers at the park have great demand at other Zoos due to their good health and bloodlines. The park has 11 tigers, of which three are tigresses. Bhandary said already talks are on to get a white tiger from Rajkot and hoped it would come soon.

Pilikula is a major eco-education and tourism development project promoted by the district administration of Dakshina Kannada and the biological park is one of the components of the many attractions it has for visitors.

A few months back, the park had welcomed a 10-year-old female hippopotamus. Kaveri is one among three hippos that the park has contracted from Bannerghatta National Park under the animal exchange programme approved by the Central Zoo Authority. Later two more hippopotamus – a male and a female- arrived at Pilikula Biological Park taking the number to three.