This story is from January 17, 2022

Chennai: Five-year-old lion dies at Vandalur zoo

A five-year-old lion died at the Arignar Anna Zoological Park at Vandalur on Saturday. This is the third lion to have died at the zoo in the last seven months.
Chennai: Five-year-old lion dies at Vandalur zoo
The zoo has been shut till January 31 after 80 employees tested positive
CHENNAI: A five-year-old lion died at the Arignar Anna Zoological Park at Vandalur on Saturday. This is the third lion to have died at the zoo in the last seven months.
While the first two had died of coronavirus last year, zoo authorities claimed that Saturday’s death of Vishnu, a five-year-old male, was due to an infection in the food pipe. The carcass has been sent to the government veterinary college hospital in Vepery for autopsy.
Veterinarians say it could be shock caused by oesophageal rupture and pulmonary
The zoo has been temporarily shut for the public till January 31 after 80 employees including zookeepers tested positive for Covid-19, an official release from AAZP director V Karunapriya said. Samples have been collected from other animals and and they will be sent to the National Institute of High Security Animal Diseases (NIHSAD), Bhopal, for screening, she said.
During the second wave, as many as 17 lions fell sick and two died of the disease.
P Ganesan, a Chennai-based research veterinarian, said that in between both the waves of Covid-19, a few ostriches died at the zoo due to an unknown disease. Instead of pushing the reasons for deaths under the carpet, the zoo should be more transparent in explaining what had happened to the animals.
“We don't know whether they had collected samples from the deceased lion and sent them for genome sequencing before it fell sick. Only when they start sharing such information, we can get to know if the death was due to coronavirus or a pathogenic problem," he said.

The state government had earlier constituted a state-level task force to provide support to authorities on prevention and mitigation of Covid-19 infection in wild and captive animals in the tiger reserves, national parks and wildlife sanctuaries and reserve forests.
This six-member team headed by state environment secretary Supriya Sahu was given the task of keeping a close watch on disease surveillance. Some officials from the Tamil N adu forest department said that this committee will soon be publishing reports about the efforts taken to monitor the disease spread and vaccination etc.
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