Etawah (UP), Aug 14 (PTI) The last lion cub at the safari park here has died, the sixth such death this year, officials said on Monday.
Deeksha Bhandari, Director of Etawah Lion Safari Park, said the fifth cub of lioness Sona at the Lion Safari Park here died on the intervening night of Saturday and Sunday.
She added that Sona had given birth to five cubs in July, four of which had died earlier.
In February, a five-day-old cub of a lioness Jessica passed away.
Bhandari said that on Saturday evening, milk was given to the male cub, and when it started vomiting after some time, doctors at the park began treatment immediately.
The treatment lasted for two hours but the cub could not be saved, the park’s director said.
The body of the cub has been sent to ICAR-Indian Veterinary Research Institute (IVRI) at Izatnagar in Bareilly for post-mortem, she added.
According to the park’s Deputy Director Jai Prakash Singh, of the other four cubs died earlier, “two were stillborn, another cub died due to dystocia, while the fourth died after it was injured after birth”.
“At present there are 19 lions and lionesses in the lion breeding centre of the safari. Eleven were born in the breeding centre, of which 6 have died so far.” Visitors to the park can go on five kinds of animal safaris — lion, leopard, deer, bear and elephant.
Meanwhile, reacting to the news, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, “The UP government could not save even the fifth and last cub of lioness Sona in Etawah Lion Safari. While the SP had warned the UP government many times about this. (sic)” “It is futile to expect anything more than silence from the BJP government in this matter (sic),” Yadav said. PTI COR NAV RPA
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