Kanpur: Nearly five-and-a-half-month after birth, a female tiger cub born to tigress Trusha and tiger Abhay died in Kanpur zoo on Sunday evening. This is the second tiger cub which had died in the zoo. On October 2, a male tiger cub had died. Now the Kanpur zoo is left with only one female tiger cub. On May 30, Trusha had given birth to three cubs, two females and one male.
Zoo director K Praveen Rao informed that the post-mortem examination of the cub revealed that it died due to cardio-respiratory failure.
“The viscera of the cub has been preserved and it will be sent to Indian Veterinary Research Institute, Bareilly for further tests. This time we will also be sending the viscera to the Laboratory for Conservation of Endangered Species (LACONES) in Hyderabad to ascertain the cause of death of the tiger cub,” Rao said.
He said that the precautions for the third surviving cub has been increased. The first three months are tough for the tiger cubs to survive.
“It is difficult to understand why a five and a half months old cub collapsed,” he said. On October 2, the male tiger cub had collapsed while playing with other cubs inside the enclosure. The keeper was the one who first saw the cub lying on ground. He informed the director. The post-mortem examination revealed that it died due to ailments in the lungs.
Sources in zoo informed that snake bite could be another cause for the death of the female tiger cub as during post-mortem examination it was learnt that the blood at the hind portion of the body of the cub had turned black, indicating towards snake bite. Dr UC Srivastava, zoo veterinarian said that owing to shock, tigress Trusha had stopped taking food. It would be normal in next three to four days. Male tiger Abhay is behaving normally.
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