Lioness death due to snakebite in Nandankanan: AWTE lodges FIR against zoo authorities

It is pertinent to mention here that the 15-year-old African lioness, ‘Ganga’ died a day after being bitten by a Krait at Nandankanan zoo on Saturday.

Lioness Death

The death of a lioness due to snakebite inside Nandankanan zoological park in Bhubaneswar has snowballed into a controversy with Animal Welfare Trust Ekamra (AWTE) lodging FIR against the zoo authorities for negligence.

The organisation has demanded an impartial probe by Police or a Wildlife organisation instead of the concerned zoo officials. In its complaint, AWTE founder Purbi Patra alleged that, “Unavailibility of adequate amount of anti-snake venom (ASV) stock resulted in the delay in the treatment of the lioness. As per the Government of India and WHO protocol, 10 numbers of vials of ASV needs to be administered within 1 hour of snakebite. But according to Zoo authorities only three vials had been given (that happened either due to lack of stock of ASV or lack of knowledge of zoo veterinarians). In either case, sheer negligence killed the lioness.”