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Lone surviving cub of tigress Gauri also dies at Chhatbir zoo
Zoo field director Kalpana K said as per CCTV surveillance, eight-year-old white tigress Gauri and her female cub were displaying normal behaviour till 10 am on Wednesday, and the cub was observed to be actively suckling
Two days after one of the two Royal Bengal tiger cubs born at the Mahendra Chaudhary Zoological Park, better known as the Chhatbir zoo, died on Monday, the zoo authorities on Thursday confirmed the second cub had also passed away.
Zoo field director Kalpana K said as per CCTV surveillance, eight-year-old white tigress Gauri and her female cub were displaying normal behaviour till 10 am on Wednesday, and the cub was observed to be actively suckling.
“But with time, the cub’s activity lowered. Despite repeated efforts of the mother to soothe her cub, she was unable to suckle. In the evening, the cub was shifted to the neonatal care unit set up by the veterinary wing as per prescribed protocol,” said Kalpna K.
In spite of constant close monitoring of physiological parameters, the cub breathed her last around 10 pm. The demise of the two cubs has left the whole zoo administration heartbroken.
Gauri had delivered two healthy and four stillborn cubs on August 3, marking the first instance of the zoo welcoming Royal Bengal tiger cubs since May 2021, when white tigress Diya had given birth to two cubs. The efforts to pair Gauri with three-year-old Arjun had begun in April, with the tigress giving birth to the cubs nearly 100 days later.
Gauri had arrived at Chhatbir from Rajkot zoo in 2019 as a four-year old. Arjun, meanwhile, was born at Chhatbir in 2019.
The field director said they had sent the cubs’ carcasses and viscera sample to Indian Veterinary Research Institute, Bareilly, and Guru Angad Dev Veterinary and Animal Sciences University, Ludhiana, for post-mortem and further histopathological examination.
