Royal Bengal tiger dies in Hyd zoo; 2nd such death within 1 month

Hyderabad: An 11-year-old Royal Bengal Tiger died at the Nehru Zoological Park in Hyderabad due to ill health. This is the second tiger to die due to ill health at the zoo in the last one month. 

The Royal Bengal tiger named Kadamba died around 9:20 pm on Thursday. Zoo officials told Times of India that a shock due to congestive heart failure was the reason behind Kadamba’s death. 

Kadamba arrived at the Nehru Zoological Park on March 6, 2014, from the Pilikula Biological Park, Mangaluru. 

The zoo curator N Kshitija informed the paper that the tiger did not show any signs of prior illness but was frequently off feed for the last few days. The zoo veterinarians had kept the tiger under observation for this reason. The doctors conducted the postmortem and collected the required blood and tissue samples for further testing. The samples were sent to the College of Veterinary Sciences in Rajendranagar, Veterinary Biological Research Institute (VBRI) in Shantinagar and Laboratory for the Conservation of Endangered Species-Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (LaCONES-CCMB), in Attapur for further testing. 

Earlier on June 24, an eight-year-old white tiger Kiran, born at the park, died due to neoplastic tumour on the right side of the lower jaw. The tiger was under intensive care since May 29 but passed away a month later. Two other tigers related to Kiran had also suffered from the same neoplastic tumour disease, zoo officials said in a press statement. The zoo officials had then roped in LaCONES-CCMB to study the effects of the tumour in tigers.

Officials informed that with the latest death, the Nehru zoological park is left with 11 Royal Bengal tigers, eight adults and three cubs. Three of the eight adult tigers, Roja (21), Soni (20) and Aparna (19) have already crossed their average lifespan.