10-year-old male leopard dies at SGNP, second death in a week
MUMBAI: A 10-year-old male leopard died at the Sanjay Gandhi National Park’s (SGNP) rescue centre on Monday night, just a week after a 10-month-old cub died of suspected poisoning.
SGNP officials said the leopard, Bhandara, showed symptoms similar to the cub, Suraj. Bhandara fell ill on September 11, the day Suraj died.
HT had reported that Bhandara had been in a coma for three days, but SGNP officials denied it.
“Bhandara had developed a similar illness as Suraj, but was responding well to treatment over the past week,”said Anwar Ahmed, director and chief conservator of forests, SGNP.
“He was in a critical condition between Wednesday and Friday last week, but showed a slight improvement over the weekend.
From Monday evening, however, he started getting worse and by night, he died,” said Ahmed, adding that it was a “great loss” for the national park.
On Tuesday afternoon, the Bombay Veterinary College conducted an autopsy on Bhandara’s body, and forensic samples were sent for testing.
The results of the analysis have not yet been released, but park officials said the cause of death could be the same Suraj’s.
The cub’s autopsy report said he had died of “toxaemia accompanied by cardiorespiratory complications” — blood poisoning from either a bacterial, microbial or chemical infection.
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