Chicken killed Bannerghatta tigress, says autopsy report

Veterinarians on Wednesday confirmed that four-year-old tigress, Divya, of Bannerghatta Biological Park (BBP), died of diarrohea triggered by feeding on chicken infected with salmonella bacteria, even as park authorities swung into action to prevent the situation from going out of control.

The authorities have quarantined 10 other BBP tigers — Arya, Surya, Razia, Vinay, Shreyas, Anu, Inchara, Sindhu and Minchu (all from the safari) and Rocky (a Sumatran tiger from the park’s Born Free Foundation centre) —- which have been infected by the bacteria. However, BBP officials said that all the 10 tigers were showing signs of recovery since Tuesday night and diarrohea had been controlled.

As experts pointed out the possibility of the salmonella bacterial infection spreading to humans, the authorities have asked the caretakers to keep off the cubs from the infected animals.

Divya was the fourth big cat to have died during the last weekend.

A 21-year-old Siberian tiger, King, died on Friday, while two lions, Lakshman (20) and Shankar (23), died on Sunday night. The authorities, however, said these three animals died due to old age. With tests identifying the source of infection, feeding of chicken to all carnivores in the park has been stopped. The lions, tigers and leopards are now being fed beef as the alternative, mutton, could be expensive and not-so-healthy.

Divya was suffering from salmonella of the liver, said Dr C Renukaprasad, director of the Institute of Animal Health and Veterinarian Sciences in Hebbal where experts conducted the post-mortem examination on the young tigress. She was suffering from gastroenteritis and jaundice, the autopsy report revealed.

Park officials said they had asked the two contractors supplying chicken to feed the animals — Afgar and Mujeeb from Shivajinagar — to stop supplying the white meat immediately. From now on, chicken will be purchased from genuine and branded outlets, they said. They suspected that the contractors could be getting the meat from the same source  which could be containing the bacteria.

Besides following the prescribed line of treatment for the salmonella infection, the park authorities were also conducting tests to ascertain whether the animals were suffering from any other bacterial or viral infection, said assistant director of Bannerghatta Biological Park veterinary services, Dr BC Chittiappa.

Ruling out the chances of the salmonella bacterial infection spreading through air, Dr Chittiappa said that the focus was on avoiding any other infection.