Friday, Apr 22, 2005
Friday, Apr 22, 2005 |
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Thiruvananthapuram
Staff Reporter
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Simba, a semi-paralysed male lion at the city zoo, died on Thursday afternoon. According to zoo officials, the death was due to acute swelling of the colon and the sphincter muscles that prevented the animal from defecating. The life of the young lion, six years and eight months old, was a painful one, with its forelimbs deformed and hind quarters paralysed. This had become evident shortly after the lion's birth at the zoo. Gastro-intestinal complications resulting from Simba's physical condition was an added source of worry to zoo officials. Till he was two years old, Simba was confined to a small cage, isolated from his pride. It was only in 2001 - when zoo officials felt that he was healthy enough - that Simba was moved to an open enclosure behind what was then the lions' cages.
Introduced to the pride
In April 2004, with fingers crossed, the zoo authorities introduced him for the first time to his pride that had by then been shifted out to the new half-acre, pseudo-habitat, open enclosure. A vasectomy was conducted on Simba to prevent him from breeding. A couple of months later, the zoo breathed a collective sigh of relief when the pride fully accepted Simba into its fold. All this was done even though the zoo officials knew that Simba's life would be short. According to the zoo vet Jayakumar, Simba started having trouble defecating some months ago. " We never expected him to live long," he said. "In one sense, it is nice that his painful battle with life is finally over."
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