SGNP's Royal Bengal Tiger passes away due to rare cancer and chronic renal disease

Anand, a 10-year-old Royal Bengal Tiger from Mumbai's Sanjay Gandhi National Park breathed his last on Thursday. He was diagnosed with rare cancer in early July which led to his death. The similar form of cancer had killed his brother Yash in May last year at the age of 12. The cancerous condition which killed the tiger is soft tissue muscular tumour, called as rhabdomyosarcoma in medical terms. Besides cancer, Anand was also suffering from chronic renal disease.

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The authorities of national park reportedly said that Anand had stopped eating solid food for the past 10 days. He became weak and his diet was restricted only to chicken soup. In June, veterinarians at the park had identified a lump in Anand’s jaw and also an unusual growth on the left side of its lower lip. Authorities said he had lost weight since March and his condition was critical. 

Anand died at 5 am on Thursday and he was cremated as per protocol after his postmortem. The Sanjay Gandhi National Park has one tiger and four tigresses. Barabde said the park’s administration is looking to bring in more tigers from zoos in accordance with the Central Zoo Authority of India’s guidelines.

At present, SGNP is home to five Royal Bengal tigers, including four females and a male. In August 2019, twin Royal Bengal tigresses were brought to SGNP from Pench Tiger Reserve in Nagpur. Park authorities have named them as Bijlee and Mastani. Basanti had given birth to four cubs – Yash, Anand, Laxmi and Puja, of whom only Laxmi (10) is alive. Sultan, a four-and-a-half-years-old is the lone male Royal Bengal tiger who was brought to SGNP from Gorewada rescue centre in Nagpur last December. 

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(Representative image, source: PTI)