The fifth and last lion cub at Etawah Safari Park in Uttar Pradesh died during the late night hours of Saturday. This was, perhaps, the first death of the cub to be reported within the last 33 days. Prior to this, two cubs had died on July 9, one on July 10 and the other on July 13. All the cubs were born to lioness nicknamed as Sona lodged at the erstwhile Lion Safari, Etawah, which was a dream project of Samajwadi Party patron and founder Mulayam Singh, who conceived the idea in 2005.
Officials at the Etawah Safari Park said the fifth cub was abandoned by the lioness after the death of her other cubs. The management was looking after the cub and was feeding it with a milk bottle. “However on Saturday night, the cub experienced fever, after which its health deteriorated. The cub was also facing breathlessness after which the cub was put on oxygen support but it could not be saved,” said Jai Prakash, deputy director, Etawah Safari Park.
Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav, however, has termed the death of the fifth cub as the failure of UP government. “The UP government has failed to save the fifth and the last cub of lioness Sona. This is when Samajwadi Party (SP) had already intimated the UP government multiple times. We can’t expect much more than a cold response from the government,” posted Akhilesh Yadav on micro-blogging site ‘X’, which was earlier called Twitter.
Officials at the safari said lioness Sona gave birth to the first cub on July 6 at around 1:51pm. On July 9, at around 7:50 pm, she gave birth to two more cubs, one of which was born dead. And on July 10, two more cubs were born, taking the total number to five.
Recently, Akhilesh Yadav raised the issue of Etawah Safari in the State Assembly during the Monsoon Session. “The UP government should also pay attention to the projects launched by the previous governments. Our government launched the Etawah Lion Safari project in order to bring UP on the world map. But, despite frequent deaths of the cubs at the safari, the government paid no heed towards it,” said Yadav while taking a dig at the UP government.
Prior to this, the death of the fourth cub was reported on July 13. Officials said the cub had some swelling in the stomach, and its health further deteriorated. At around 11:55 am, the cub died, the safari officials stated.
Other than the cubs, one female bear, named Kuni, died on August 12 at Etawah Safari Park. The carcass of the bear was sent for post-mortem at Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhyay Vishwavidyalaya, Mathura. Kuni was rescued on July 31, 2007 from the jungles of Odisha and was brought to Nawab Wajid Ali Shah Zoological Garden, Lucknow, on March 6, 2007 after which the bear was shifted to Etawah Safari Park on April 3, 2017.
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