While teams of the Sayajibaug zoo attended to Samriddhi round the clock since Monday evening, the mighty lioness suffered a seizure on Friday evening. (File photo)
Vadodara’s Sayajibaug Zoo on Friday lost its six-year-old lioness Samriddhi – five days after she was injured in a deadly fight with an Indian Cobra that had slithered into her cage on Monday evening. Samriddhi, who had pounced with all her might at the cobra and grievously injured it, succumbed to venom toxicity from the cobra’s bites that landed mostly on her face during the encounter.
While teams of the Sayajibaug zoo attended to Samriddhi round the clock since Monday evening, the mighty lioness suffered a seizure on Friday evening and bid adieu to her home of five years. Samriddhi’s death has left Vadodara’s iconic zoo without a lion – her partner Samrat had passed away at the age of two-and-a-half-years due to a chronic kidney ailment in September 2022 and the zoo’s 15-year-old lion king, Kunwar, had passed away a month later due to injuries sustained in the enclosure. Since then, Samriddhi had been the lone lioness in the zoo, attracting visitors.
Samriddhi passing away comes just two days after the zoo delightfully announced the arrival of White Tigers after a gap of 40 years. Zoo Curator Dr Pratyush Patankar told The Indian Express on Friday that the loss of Samriddhi is devastating. Patankar said, “It was on Monday evening, while we were in Rajkot’s Pradhyuman Zoological Park to complete the formalities of bringing home the pair of white tigers that I received a call about the encounter Samriddhi had with the Indian Cobra in her enclosure… I had immediately passed on the necessary instructions and the veterinary doctors had already begun treatment immediately…”
Patankar said the lioness had suffered venomous bites on her cheek and mouth among other places, leading to a rapid venom toxicity. “We returned with the White Tigers on Tuesday evening and I rushed to check on her… She seemed to be improving but the venom had been strong. The veterinarians were hopeful she would recover but we were told that the recovery would be long. As many as 12 anti-venom doses were administered to her in the four days. However, there had been tissue damage due to venom hemolysis… She suffered a massive seizure on Friday afternoon and we lost her,” Patankar said.
The Zoo curator said while Central Zoo Authority of India recognises snake bites as a common cause of fatality in animals in zoo enclosures made to resemble wilderness, the encounter between Samriddhi and the Cobra could have ended differently. “From the videos that one of the guards recorded, it was seen that she pounced on the snake immediately as they came face to face in the moat area… Had she not pounced hard, the cobra would have just tried to push her away without the deadly bite… She did manage to leave the Cobra grievously injured too. The snake was handed over to the forest department for treatment,” Patankar said.
Samriddhi and Samrat were born in April 2020 and had been brought in as a pair in December 2021 from Sakkarbaug Zoo in Junagadh. The Sayajibaug zoo had lost its lioness Gayle – Lion Kunwar’s mate in November 2020. With the loss of Samriddhi, the Sayajibaug zoo will now look for options to populate the lion enclosure.
“It is a quirk of fate… While completing the formalities with Rajkot zoo for the white tigers, we discussed the possibility of a ‘breeding loan’ exchange that would have involved Samriddhi being sent to Rajkot for breeding as she was in her prime years. We would have received old lions for display at Sayajibaug in the interim period. As per CZA guidelines, the cubs born out of the breeding loan programme are to be equally shared between the two zoos… We were planning to send a proposal for the same in the coming week but it was not to be…” Patankar said.
