LAHORE: A male puma died on Saturday at Lahore Zoo, said Zoo officials.

The puma named Moti, was nine-year-old and brought to Lahore Zoo from Karachi back in 2009. He had been sick for the last four days and blood screenings revealed Trypanosomiasis (blood protozoan).

Zoo officials claimed all efforts were made to stabilise the big cat but it could not survive.

Read: Puma pair added to zoo

Moti’s carcass has been sent to UVAS for the postmortem examination. This disease had already hit the zoo lions back in 2008 and caused death of some of them.

A zoo official told Dawn the puma had shown symptoms of the disease in January last when his blood screening was carried out. However, after the treatment the animal recovered just to relapse into a more fatal spell of the disease, he added.

Published in Dawn, May 31st, 2015

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