They died of hunger after they were abandoned by their mother
The euphoria over the birth of five cubs, including a white one, in the Nandankanan Zoological Park (NZP) here did not last long as all the newborns died on Friday.
On Wednesday, Priyanka, the 11-year-old tigress, gave birth for the first time. Soon after giving birth the mother abandoned the cubs and refused to feed them.
“We don't see anything unusual in the incident. Priyanka had become mother for the first time. Even in the wild, such rejection leading to deaths happens,” said Siba Narayan Mohapatra, deputy director of NZP. There was no way one could make the tigress feed her cubs, Mr. Mohapatra said.
Rare phenomenon
Till date, 347 cubs were born in the zoo. The birth of five cubs at one go is said to be a rare phenomenon. Normally two to three cubs are born at a time. In the history of the Nandankanan Zoo, only on three occasions have the birth of five cubs been recorded. On two occasions, all five cubs died. In the other instance, three survived.
According to zoo sources, animal keepers had been observing the deteriorating health of three cubs since Thursday evening. The mother was not found near the cubs. After post-mortem, it was found that the cubs died of acute hunger.
In fact, the birth of a white cub had thrilled the zoo authorities as a normal-coloured Royal Bengal Tiger pair had given birth to a white cub after 11 years. At present, the premier zoo has 24 tigers; 10 of these are white ones.
Keywords: Nandankanan Zoological Park, tigers death
very tragic, thanks to sheer incompetence of the zoo officials we have lost valuable genetic material. The zoo officials should have taken immediate steps to feed the cubs by hand and every possible step to ensure the survival of this very endangered cat. What bunch of bloody idiots.I find it incredible how stupid these officials are, not to mention pathetic , in south sfrican zoos this wont be tolerated, these officials are callous, i am not optimistic about the prospects of the tiger.
Its just that zoo lacks the expertise to hand rear Tiger cubs. Please train these folks or at least make them watch Animal Planet! This is just madness Mr. Mohapatra should be fired
How shameful on your part. You are only putting up the negative comments. Nothing shall happen to the zoo staff. This is a common happaning in all the zoos of the country.
what a shame. the zoo authorities have to be charged for criminal negligence. If they don't know what they are supposed to do, then why spend tax payers money on hopeless projects?
This is a shame on us, the government should throw away those officials and workers (suspended for months without income or any stipend), who let the cubs die of hunger.
Surely, the zoo did everything it could to save these beautiful babies. IF NOT ,THEY MUST BE HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR THESE DEATHS. I hope there is an ivestigation as to what was done to make sure that they did do EVERTHING POSSIBLE. WHAT A SHAME!
How can these 'keepers' be so inept that they allowed the five cubs to die of starvation? Did they think the tiger mother was going to change her mind, suddenly develop maternal instincts, are they totally uneducated or unable to do their jobs??? How can anyone just watch as any animal slowly starves to death? Totally inhumane and cruel.
Read all the comments. Agreed that hand rearing of the cubs should have been done. My request to all those have commented of negligence, carelessness, irresponsible etc. etc. to please find out whether any zoo in the country has hand reared one day old tiger cubs. Has any body realy seen how an one day old cub looks like and how ferocious is the mother tiger with cubs ? Observing meticulusly which cub is not fed properly or neglected by mother and selectively separating that one with out disturbing the mother and other cubs is an impossible task. Many people point fingure at the keepers. But my request to them would be get associated with any zoo and observe the sincerity of zoo keepers in rearing and upkeeping activities. As told by zoo official to the print media death of all cubs of the first batch of any mother tiger is not uncommon. Any way the inquiry shall reveal the truth.
Everyone knows that Tigers in India are in endangered list, Center as well state spent Hugh money for increasing the number of tigers in our country. But our Zoo staff or Forest dept. or any other dept concerning with tiger population engulf all this money and don't care for the rare species. They only know that"IF THEY'LL TAKE CARE OF EACH AND EVERY CUB, TIGER POPULATION WILL BE REASONABLY GOOD IN SHORT TIME AND IF THAT HAPPENED ......... NO ONE GET MONEY IN THE NAME OF "TIGER CONSERVATION PROJECT".... that's why helpless cubs are left unhandy without any care." This is India .... here peoples (Indian) are left on roads to die because of HUNGER..... FORGET ABOUT THE CUBS !!!
Seriously.....The men who take care of these Tigers at Nandankanan--I've seen them-- Typical mean Job people who are drowned in their own ocean of attitudes. Its like nobody cares. "We have tigers"-the last ones, probably. Nothings ever gonna happen unless the Govt. of India takes severe measures for the last of the Tigers left in India.Its a normal psychology for workers to be habitually careless in a Govt. Job(The Govt. Sector in India is particularly messed up in most aspects).These deaths should be taken SERIOUSLY and strong actions must follow. Otherwise these future Tiger-Cubs will continue dying till we have no more ALIVE cubs to see(I hope the Govt. of India will have this much courtesy to preserve the dead body of the LAST TIGER here).
Yes, they are to be raised in the wild by their own breed, but they were born in captivity. We all read to where this was Priyanka was a mother for the first time, but the reason why zoos allow the tigers to breed in captivity, is suppose to be able to supply their own tigers. THEY did not do this! they starved them! this is animal cruelty! Just because she supposedly "will give birth again", does NOT mean these should have been allowed to starve to death! Over here in the United States, the person or zoo that had done this, would have been brought up on charges!
The cubs are supposed to be raised by their own breed otherwise they wont survive the short-comings. And if one reads carefully Priyanka has been a mother for the first time, it means she will give birth again. In addition the department has said that this is not some uncommon incident (or accident many would say).
We can expect such sad things to happen only in a zoo in India.
Real apathy and sorry state of affairs. This will continue as no one will face accountability for these deaths.
I totally agree with all the comments and am horrified that these poor cubs were not hand reared. As mentioned it is normal on occasion for the mother tigress to abandond her young and if this happens in captivity then humans should intervene, so why did this not happen this time???
Very sad about it... But every one of furious about the zoo people. But are we sure that the new born can be fed with other milk as soon as they were born. I guess they wont drink. If yes, they should have taken effort.
seriously, what rubbish. when cubs dies of hunger, 'experts' pray for the tigress to change her mind. Is that how advanced our system is? pathetic!
Considering that the Tiger is an endangered species, an effort should have been made to feed the cubs. Other lactating animals (dogs etc.) will adopt a newborn from a different species. Why wasn't that effort made? Not enough money to be made? Hope the "animal keepers" will have to face a similar problem in their own family one day and nobody cares about it!
We Need To Save Every Tiger Other wise Tiger Figure Is Gone Down.
May be because of some disease . or else due to the carelessness of zoo officials. if it is because of any disease it should be found out soon and issues should be sorted soon before it affects any other animals.
Why couldn't they be hand reared??? They were born into captivity so why couldn't they be fostered by humans until weaned? It's horrific that no one intervened. If it was in the wild I would understand them letting nature take it's course. But this happened in a zoo where the staff just stood around and let it happen. Does this zoo starve all it's animals to death, or just the helpless newborns?
How come the cubs died of acute hunger! cant they be fed with other milk? Zoologists please comment.
I feel so sad after reading death of five new born cubs. I don't know much but was thinking may be authorities could have given bottle milk or something to save the cubs instead of letting them die.
CAN ANYONE TELL ME WHY WERE ARRANGEMENTS NOT MADE TO FEED THE CUBS SOME OTHER WAY??????????? INSTEAD OF LETTING THEM DIE OF HUNGER???
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