Rajasthan lioness gets parenting tips from TV
JAIPUR: In a development that may have few precedents, Tejika, an Asiatic lioness at Nahargarh Biological Park who recently gave birth to five cubs, has been getting motherhood tips from video documentaries of BBC and National Geographic.
The park officials resorted to the ‘training programme’ after their experience with Tejika’s sister, RT, in Jodhpur’s Machia biological park: she accidentally killed one of her cubs when she picked it in her mouth improperly. The other cub in the litter was also seriously injured.
“Tejika is taking good care of her cubs,” said Rajasthan’s chief wildlife warden Arindam Tomar. “We don’t know what impact the documentaries had on her but she is doing better than her sister.”
The two tigresses were rescued from a circus and had never experienced motherhood. So taking care of cubs was new for them, the forest officials said. Injuries to cubs are not uncommon for the first litter of big cats in the wild as well, they said.
The Jodhpur incident was an eye-opener and the department installed an LED TV in Tejika’s enclosure showing her BBC and National Geographic documentaries on how lions behave with their cubs in the wild.
The videos focussed on showing big cats lifting cubs in their mouth and moving around without hurting them.
Tomar said the videos were shown to Tejika for a short duration each day. Initially, she did not watch the videos but started observing the screen after a few days.
Wildife expert Raza H Tehsin said her behaviour towards the newborns is not homogeneous and it would be “very difficult” to say what impact the shows had.
Motherhood was not easy for Tejika, who was shifted from Gujarat a few years ago. For months, she was not able to adjust to the zoo atmosphere and was battling diseases. With doctors tending to her around the clock, she survived and then got intimate with a lion named Siddhartha.
Park officials, however, are keeping their fingers crossed for Tejika’s cubs. “We hope that the TV experiment will be successful, but it is early days,” said a park official, requesting anonymity.
The cubs and their mother are in a secluded area and officials are keeping a watch through CCTVs.
Asiatic lions are found only in Gir National Park in Gujarat and some rescued from circuses have been kept in zoos across India.