THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Cancer has become a common cause of death among the wild animals at the city zoo. In the past 20 years, the zoo has lost 20 animals. The last one being the 30-year-old Asian black bear named Ravi. A postmortem revealed that the animal was suffering from total liver damage due to cancer. “Cancer has been found prevalent in both carnivorous and herbivorous animals, especially at old age.
We do not often find it in cattle due to high culling rate,” said zoo veterinarian Dr Jacob Alexander. According to him, parasite-induced tumours, common in the state, can be dangerous for tigers, elephants etc. He said the pollutants in the environment are the major reason for a spike in cancer cases in humans as well as animals. The zoo also has many cancer survivors. Lioness Aiswarya, which died in October, had survived cancer. So is the case of a jaguar.