Damini, the 13-year-old tigress, was one of the major attractions at the zoo ever since she was brought here f... Read More

UDAIPUR: A tigress was mauled to death by a tiger that barged into her enclosure at the Sajjangarh Zoological Park in Udaipur on Thursday afternoon .

Damini, the 13-year-old tigress, was one of the major attractions at the zoo ever since she was brought here from Pune. The male tiger, Kumar, had been brought later from Karnataka and both the big cats were kept in separate enclosures adjacently.

The male tiger that crept into Damini’s cage attacked her perhaps because she was not receptive of his approaches. The struggle between the big cats was witnessed by many visitors who were around the area at the moment.

Big cats introductions can be perilous even if they are kept in adjacent close enclosures where they can see, smell and react to each other, experts said.

“A male tiger is very powerful and it takes only minutes for it to maul the female if she isn’t in the oestrus cycle (the period in the sexual cycle of female mammals). Perhaps this would have been the case with Damini, which was killed by Kumar. This is the first case where any male animal has killed a female partner. Whether it is negligence on the part of the caretakers at the park or the substandard material of the fencing that the tiger found a way to enter Damini’s enclosure, would only be known after a detailed investigation,” Rahul Bhatnagar, retired CCF said.

None of the authorities from the forest department were available for a comment.

