Last surviving puma cub dies at Karachi Zoo

Karachi: The third and only surviving puma cub Karachi Zoo died mysteriously on Thursday amid claims of the zoo staff that the adult male puma had killed its offspring.

Three puma cubs had been born at the Karachi Zoo last month but two of them died of malnutrition and infections only a couple of weeks later, said director zoo Faheem Khan.

The first puma cub had died at the end of May while the second passed away just at end of the first week of June. Khan said the second cub had been ill before he died and presumably died from a heat stroke.

“The last surviving was the last hope for zoo authorities to carry on the lineage of big cats and was being raised with utmost care. “Today the staff informed me that male Puma had killed the surviving cub when it accidently crossed into its cage. I’m not satisfied with this explanation and have thus begun an inquiry,” he told The News.

Khan said he had also recommended to the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation to suspend three zoo workers since he had not been satisfied with the care being provided to the puma cub. “The death of the cub is a serious loss and will be dealt with accordingly,” he said.

A day after the officials had found the first cub dead, the zoo director had ensured that the surviving cubs were being handfed and saw to it that their conditions improved.  

However, the zoo has a poor track record for keeping animals alive. Tigers, jackals, deer and even a camel of a critically endangered species have died at the Karachi zoo in the recent years.

Earlier in April, five black bucks were killed when a gang of stray dogs managed to enter their enclosure and injured many of them by biting, since there was no protection around the enclosure of the rare animal species.

When contacted by the The News, Karachi Metropolitan Officials said they were looking into the latest incident at the zoo and claimed that Administrator Laiq Ahmed had formed a committee to find out circumstances leading to the death of the puma cub.