TIGERS DEAD AT CHHATBIR ZOO

September 22, 2006

*2 Royal Bengal tigers die at Indian zoo*

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AMRITSAR, India (AP) - Two young Royal Bengal tigers died unexpectedly

at a zoo in India where dozens of lions have already died young, possibly

because of a breeding program that produced weak animals, a conservator said

Thursday.

A nearly three-year-old tiger was found dead in its enclosure Wednesday. A

few hours later, its 3 1/2-year-old female companion collapsed and died at

the Chhatbir Zoo near the northern city of Chandigarh, said Dharmender

Sharma, who runs the zoo.

He couldn't explain the deaths and said the results of post-mortem tests are

expected in five to six days.

The deaths came at a time when authorities are monitoring 24 hybrid lions

who have a disease thought to be linked to a breeding experiment at the zoo

using Asiatic and African lions.

Most of the lions, all age 12 years or older, are expected to live for five

to six years longer, said Kuldip Kumar, a conservator at the Forest and

Wildlife Department of Punjab state. Lions in captivity generally do not

live longer than 18 years.

The breeding program, which began in the late 1980s at the Chhatbir Zoo, has

been blamed for the early deaths of many of the nearly 80 lions involved.

The zoo ended the program in 2002 because it suspected a mysterious disease

that struck the lions was linked to inbreeding and a weakened gene pool,

Kumar said.

Wildlife officials had hoped the hybrid lions could be introduced into the

wild to bolster India's endangered wild lion population. Surveys of the

forests in western India since 2000 have put the number of wild Asiatic

lions at fewer than 400.

Experts say poaching is driving the Asiatic lion to extinction. Lions are

killed for their pelts and claws, both of which command a high price in the

illegal wildlife trade.

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