Munnar, Sept. 17: The Kerala government will re-christen a crocodile park after “Crocodile Hunter” Steve Irwin, who died of a stingray barb while filming off Australia’s Great Barrier Reef on September 4.

Forest minister Benoy Viswom’s announcement on renaming the park at Neyyar, around 30 km from Thiruvananthapuram, came at the valedictory session of the fourth World Congress on Mountain Ungulates (hoofed animals), which ended here yesterday.

Nothing, perhaps, gladdened the hearts of conservationists at the congress more than the government coming up with a tribute to the daring wildlife adventurer who lived thousands of miles away in a different continent.

Viswom said this might be the first time a memorial was being marked for Irwin.

The revamped crocodile park will be inaugurated during the wildlife week early next month.

“We cherish the memory of Steve, a great entertainer, environmentalist and conservationist. We couldn’t think of a quick, better way to honour a life devoted to demystifying the animal world to fellow human beings,” Viswom said.

The minister said the government has plans to set up a world-class crocodile research centre at Neyyar.

He also announced a two-day festival, starting October 7, to mark the blooming of Neela Kurinji on patches of the Western Ghats — a spectacle which takes place once in 12 years. The grassland shrub that blooms with unfailing periodicity has spread a velvet canopy on the Munnar hills.

Munnar is one of the 34 global biodiversity hotspots in the world and home to the ungulate, Nilgiri Tahr, an endangered mountain goat. Hunting and poaching had brought down its number to less than 100 by the early 20th century. But conservation efforts in the last eight decades have helped raise their number to over 2,000.

The Eravikulam National Park alone is now home to more than 675 tahrs. The last calving season saw an addition of 36 to the population.

The Nilgiri Tahr and the Neela Kurinji are icons of the Western Ghats ecosystem.

Park warden Roy Thomas has put into service a fleet of buses for visitors to get a glimpse of the flowers that will last till December and go into hibernation until 2018.

Next time around, enthusiasts can look forward to seeing more Kurinji blooming as the government has announced setting up of a sanctuary for the shrub.