Country’s oldest tigress in captivity, Swati died in the Assam State Zoo at Guwahati on Sunday.
Assam State Zoo officials confirmed this on Sunday and said that the close to 20 year old Royal Bengal tigress was not keeping well for quite some time. “She died around 2 am. She died of old age and it is a great loss for the zoo,” said Divisional Forest officer of the Zoo, T Mariswamy said on Sunday.
“She had been suffering for last several weeks. We have arranged for special care for the ailing tigress. However, all our efforts failed and she breathed her last around 2 am,” said a senior Zoo official.
He said that Swati’s carcass was incarcerated at the zoo on Sunday afternoon.
The 1998 born tigress was brought to Guwahati in 2005 and she had given birth to six cubs in the zoo. While one of the male tiger given birth by Swati died in Assam State Zoo at Guwahati last month due to encephalitis. Birina — a tigress given birth by Swati is still there in Assam State zoo.
The zoo officials further said that while two other tiger cubs given birth by Swati have died in the zoo in past few years while two others are in captivity at Tata Zoological Park in Jamshedpur and at the Nandanvan zoo in Raipur (Chattisgarh).
It may be mentioned here that the average life of the Royal Bengal Tiger is between 14 to 16 years. However, those in captivity has a record of surviving till 18 years. The last oldest surviving tiger Guddu died at the Kanpur zoo at the age of 26 in 2014.
Now after Swati’s death the Assam State Zoo at Guwahati has four tigers including two white tigers — all females, the zoo officials said adding that efforts are on to bring a male tiger to the zoo soon.