BHUBANESWAR: A week after welcoming three tiger cubs, Nandankanan Zoological Park here has another new addition with a lion cub being born this week. Lioness Bijili gave birth to the cub late on Friday night. This is the second time she has given birth, zoo officials said.
The five-year-old lioness had given birth to two cubs and a stillborn on July 21 last year. However, it could not tend to the cubs following which one died, while the other cub Barsha was hand-reared by one of the animal keepers of the zoo.
The zoo deputy director Sanjeet Kumar said Bijili has accepted the cub this time and feeding it properly. Both the mother and the cub are in good health. They are under a round-the-clock CCTV watch. With the newborn, the zoo now has 18 lions including nine Asiatic lions.
Zoo officials informed that a stump-tailed macaque baby was also born on Saturday. Nandankanan now has eight stumped-tailed macaque.