HYDERABAD:An 18-year-old Royal Bengal Tiger, born and brought up at city’s Nehru Zoological Park here, is said to be battling for life. Nikhil is fondly recognised as the twin brother of tigress Sakhi, who was skinned to death by poachers inside the zoo park when she was only 13-months-old.
Following her death, a distressed Nikhil had refused to intake any food for days. At the moment too, his health has deteriorated manifold as he refused to eat food for a while.
Along with him, there are five female royal bengal tigers and four male royal bengal tigers at NZP. Though care is being provided on a daily basis to Nikhil, the feline is counting his last days, the zoo officials said. Nikhil, according to Dr Navin Kumar, retired deputy director and presently zoo consultant, is born with ‘a wild gene’ making him much more active and aggressive than other tigers. However, he has been suffering with brocho pneumonia for the past two months.
“Slowly, all his vital organs are degenerating. Both his kidneys are in a bad shape right now. His hind quarter has become weak and he is unable to move which is a clear indication that his kidneys have failed. He is restricting himself to a corner and is not responding to treatment either,” the doctor said. His normal feeding has also hampered. “He would normally eat 8 kg of red meat. Now it has reduced to just one kg, that too soft meat -chicken and mutton,” Dr Kumar added. “However, the reason is that he is just aging and these complications arise. He still has the killer instinct inside him. He growls when we go close, but that is it. He is not responding to drugs either,” the doctor informed.
He also added that a lot has been done by the group of veterinarians. “We gave him a life otherwise he would have died a long time ago. But age is the primary reason for why he has weakened so much. We cannot say when, but the time has neared,” Dr Kumar said. His liver was stimulated to make him hungry, but it hasn’t helped.