Deer dying at the Hill Palace Museum park at Thripunithura is worrying the authorities even as the disease is yet to be identified.
Eight adult deer have died in a week starting June 14. Five calves have also died, but the park authorities said the calves had died due to extreme weather conditions that made survival difficult for them.
The district animal husbandry office has taken samples of deer that died on June 19 and sent them to Thiruvananthapuram for laboratory testing. The results are expected by Sunday.
E. Dineshan, registrar at the Centre for Heritage Studies at the museum and in-charge of the deer park, told The Hindu that officials of the Animal Husbandry Department had said that the symptoms did not fully conform to foot-and-mouth disease.
The deer park has a population of 264, of which 232 are spotted deer and 32 are of the sambhar variety.
