Death knell for UP lion safari as ninth cat dies

The environment of Etawah is proving fatal for the lions introduced in a forest here from Gir in Gujarat.

Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav's dream project of setting up a lion safari in his home district suffered another big jolt as one more lion, Kuber, died on Thursday. Doctors attending on Kuber said he died of "canine distemper".

This is the ninth big cat, including five cubs, to have died over the past year and a half. Experts say the atmosphere in the 350-acre Safari in the Fisher forest of Etawah may not be conducive for lions.

"We called the best vets the state had… the survival of lion cubs is incomparable with other animals as has been evident from the slow growth of their population in Gujarat," says KK Singh, former director of the safari. No UP Forest Department (UPFD) officer was willing to speak on the "sensitive" issue as the CM directly oversees the project himself.

"Veterinarians from Britain and IVRI, Bareilly, had been treating him for the past one month but sadly we could not save him," says safari Deputy Director Anil Kumar Patel. He said Kuber had been suffering from the disease since April 16.

The lion safari cannot be declared official or opened to the public till there is captive breeding and the cubs survive for at least a year. After the death of lioness Tapasya on January 10, the state government had engaged famous vet Dr Crack Non Jonathan of UK's Longleat Safari. He has been camping here with his team but could not prevent Kuber's death.

Four cubs had died in July 2015 soon after birth, while the fifth one died a month later. Before that, Laxmi and Vishnu had died in October and November, 2014, respectively. The lion safari now has three lions, Manan, Gigo and Pataudi, and four lionesses, Heer, Kunwari, Girishma and Jessica.

UP government is spending over Rs 1 lakh every month on food and upkeep of each pair of the animal. The government has also created a corpus of Rs 100 crore for the Safari's maintenance.

The Forest Department has provided all sorts of facilities for the lions since it's a high profile project. Besides regulation of temperature with the help of heaters during winters and coolers in summers, RO-purified water and disinfected meat is given to the animals. To make the habitat conducive for lions, the existing vegetative cover is being transformed.

Selective removal of exotic plants is supplemented by indigenous grasses, shrubs and trees. Soil conservation work is also being done on a big scale.