In Delhi, an 18-year-old white tiger Geeta died in the city zoo after a brief illness, reported the Times of India.
Meanwhile an 11-year-old tigress was found dead in Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve in Rajasthan’s Sawaimadhopur district on Saturday, an official said.
The carcass of the tigress in the Tiger Reserve, codenamed T-11, was found in Naaypur area by the patrolling staff, Field Director of the Reserve YK Sahu said.
It prima facie appears to be a natural death. A board of three doctors has been constituted for the postmortem, which will take place in the presence of representatives from district administration, police, local NGOs and others as per the protocol.
The older cat was born in 1998 in the Delhi zoo after her parents were brought here from the Nandan Kanan zoo in Odisha. She had not been keeping well in the past two weeks and was not consuming the food kept for her.
She would consume 14 kilos of beef and chicken when she was healthy. However the zoo authorities said there was nothing unusual about her as this is how the big cats behave when they get old.
Various tests done on her revealed that her lungs, kidneys and liver had stopped functioning properly.
There were useven white tigers in the zoo up until recently but now just two remain, one who is 20-years-old and the other is 13.
White tigers are a major crowd puller and authorities are considering bringing them in from different parts of the country.
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