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Five jungle cats, two fishing cats die at Lahore Zoo

By Shoaib Ahmed

LAHORE: Five jungle cats and two fishing cats have died at Lahore Zoo in the last couple of months, Wildlife Department sources told Daily Times on Saturday.

They said that the jungle cats had died last month, the fishing cats in February. They said that there had been six jungle cats in the zoo which were caught from the wild, five died last month.

Catching animals from the wild and keeping them in the zoo is against modern zoo practice unless there is a strong conservation objective attached to it, the sources said.

They said that in 2004 a common civet and a palm civit died and the two fishing cats, which died in February, were brought to the Zoo as their replacement.

The deputy director of Lahore Zoo told Daily Times that the jungle and fishing cats were donated by Karachi Zoo and were not caught from the wild. He said that one of the jungle cats was already injured and the others died due to an appetite problem. He said that the fishing cats died due to illness. He had no idea about their exact death dates as the record was with another official who was not available.

They said that the Lahore Zoo had also lost three female Himalayan langoors last winter. They said that the Zoo authorities believed that their cause of death was the cold though they survive much harsher winters than Lahore’s in their natural habitat.

They said that in 2004, a male gharial (alligator) died the day after it was transferred by truck from Karachi to Lahore Zoo.

A chimpanzee, a Bengal tiger and a red deer also died at Lahore Zoo last year, Wildlife sources said. The red deer was suffering from tuberculosis, the chimpanzee died because of improper treatment and the tiger died after it swallowed a sharp bone which bruised its intestine.

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