Thiruvananthapuram Zoo loses another big cat

Kaavya Pradeep Kumar

Sindhu the lioness dies a week after her long-time companion

Grief isn’t an emotion one would readily associate with a wild beast. But it seems to have claimed the life of one of the city zoo’s oldest residents. Sindhu, a 21-year-old lioness, died on Tuesday morning – a week after her long-time companion Seena died of multiple organ failure.

Physically, there was nothing to suggest that Sindhu’s life was in immediate danger. In fact, her body was described as ‘stout’ and resilient. But the suffering and eventual death of Seena had a profound psychological impact on her companion.

Sindhu’s sleep patterns had been erratic over the past week. She lost her appetite and barely ate the first couple of days since Seena’s death. The cameras installed inside the lioness’ enclosure relayed images of the animal ceaselessly pacing to and fro.

The keepers and the zoo veterinarian tried all they could to make her comfortable including feeding her meat removed of bones and medication that would help her sleep. But she was severely depressed.

By Monday, she was weak and could barely lift her head. Zoo vet Jacob Alexander said that her breathing grew laboured and she was beginning to suffer cardiac problems. She breathed her last at 6 a.m. on Tuesday.

For big cats, 21 is a very advanced age considering that their life expectancy hovers around the 15 years mark in the wild. Age-related ailments caused Sindhu to limp and her teeth to fall out, but that is as far as her physical symptoms went. The autopsy showed that the animal did have cysts on her ovaries that had metastasized to her liver. These growths were not out of the ordinary, Dr. Alexander said.

“Because of the amount of red meat they eat in their lifetime, it is expected to find such growths in felines’ system when they become very old. In fact, we were stunned not to find any growths in Seena’s body when we did her autopsy last week,” he said.

The two lionesses were born in the zoo and are separated only by three months. They share the same father.

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