BHUBANESWAR: AFTER the loss of four elephants in a span of 25 days last month, Nandankanan Zoo here lost a white tiger ‘Subhranshu’ on Tuesday. The fiveyear- old tiger was suffering from blood protozoan disease. Zoo veterinarians said the tiger was under intensive care of zoo veterinarians for the last one month and was kept in isolation after his health condition deteriorated. Subhranshu had stopped eating since Saturday and the zoo authorities had also taken help of experts from Centre for Wildlife Health at Odisha University of Agriculture and Technology for treatment of the ailing big cat.
Preliminarily postmortem findings suggest that death occurred due to haemorrhagic enteritis, and Ascites caused by a life-threatening tick borne protozoan parasite, Zoo Deputy Director Jayant Das said. As per the post-mortem report the liver and intestine of the tiger had been damaged, he added. Samples of the carcass collected during the post-mortem will be sent to Indian Veterinary Research Institute-Bareily and Chennai as well as Centre for Wildlife Health to ascertain the exact protozoan species that infected Subhranshu. The white tiger was born to Manish and Sneha at the zoo on July 28, 2014. With his death, the population of tigers at Nandankanan has come down to 25.
The zoo now has 12 male and 13 female tigers. However, Subhransu is not the only tiger that died due to tick borne protozoan disease. Two other tigers, including Manish, had also died due to the same disease earlier. Manish, the 10-year-old Royal Bengal tiger died last year due to blood protozoan disease caused by a lethal virus Cytauxzoon felis. Apart from tigers, Giraffe ‘Joy’ had also died at the Zoo in 2016 due to Theileriosis, a tick-borne disease caused by a protozoan parasite. The Zoo authorities said they had been taking adequate measures, including timely disinfection of enclosures, to eliminate ticks. These measures will be intensified further, the Zoo Deputy Director said. He said untimely rain many have become favourable for the ticks to multiply. The disinfection of enclosures will be done every 15 days and blood samples of all zoo animals will be sent for lab test every month.