Bhubaneswar: The lone zebra in the Nandankanan Zoological Park here was found dead Monday morning, zoo officials said.
Some zoo employees found the three-and-a-half-year-old zebra, the main attraction for visitors, dead in enclosure No 34 in the morning and brought the matter to the notice of the authorities. There were injury marks on the animal’s body.
“The zebra was doing well till Sunday night. It was taking food normally and moving freely inside the enclosure. However, it died suddenly,” said NZP Deputy Director Jayant Kumar Das.
Though the officials initially suspected that lightning could have killed the zebra, the post-mortem report confirmed that it died after being affected by taskamia disease. A team of experts at OUAT conducted the post-mortem on the zebra in the afternoon.”The animal was affected by taskmia disease. It is an infectious disease,” said head of pathology at OUAT Susen Kumar Panda.
At a time when the zoo authorities are preparing to welcome 18 new guests to be brought from Arignar Anna Zoological Park in Chennai, the death of the lone zebra has saddened the authorities.
Four zebras were brought to the Nandankanan Zoological Park from Israel’s Tel Aviv Zoo in 2015. While a three-year-old female zebra among them died on August 20 last year due to sickness, a two-year-old female zebra lost its life on October 29 the same year. A two-and-a-half-year-old male zebra died in the zoo on May 30 due to stomach-related illness.
With the lone zebra’s death, the zoo has no more zebras to exhibit. The zoo officials are in touch with other zoological parks to bring a zebra under an animal exchange programme, the official said.
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