A long-suffering Royal Bengal tiger, born blind in 2016 at the Sri Venkateswara Zoological Park in Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh, and battling congenital health issues, died last weekend, news agencies reported quoting a zoo official.
The male tiger grew up in the animal rescue centre at the zoo. According to a press release issued by the zoo, a medical test in 2017 found that the animal suffered from epileptic seizures. Curiously, none of the news reports mentioned a name for the tiger.
A postmortem examination carried out by a team of veterinarians from the Sri Venkateswara University, Tirupati, found that brain underdevelopment ailments led to the tiger’s death, a report in The Siasat Daily said.
It is obvious that the animal would not have survived beyond infancy in the wild, and it was only the security and care it got at the zoo that enabled it to make it to the age of seven years. More than half the tiger cubs born in the wild, healthy or not, do not make it past their second birthday.
Tigers that do make it to adulthood in the jungle usually live for 10-15 years. In captivity, the animal can live for up to 20 years.
