KARACHI: A Bengal tiger that the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) authorities had imported only two years ago at an exorbitant cost died in the zoo on Saturday morning.

The big cat had been suffering from an unidentified disease for four months during which it had lost much of its weight. It’s the second death of Bengal tiger in two years in the zoo.

“It was unable to digest food properly because of gastrointestinal tract problems. The same thing has been shown in its autopsy. There is no negligence on our part as we consulted senior experts for its treatment,” said zoo director Fahim Khan.

According to Mr Khan, people from organisations such as the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and the Baqai College for Veterinary Sciences also visited the zoo and reaffirmed to zoo authorities that the treatment they were giving to the ailing animal was correct.

“The tiger had the same health issues two years ago but recovered,” he said, adding that the animal couldn’t be removed from the public view because the zoo quarantine was under construction.

The tiger was declared to be three to four years old at the time of its arrival, but now the zoo authorities have a different thing to say.

“Experts from Baqai College told us that the animal was 12 years old whereas private consultants who performed the autopsy said that it was 10 years old,” Mr Khan said.

Replying to a question, he said that only those KMC officials who were involved in animal purchase could explain why the animal’s correct age was not known at that time.

The KMC bought two pairs of Bengal tigers and white lions in 2012 from 3B Enterprises, Karachi. The animals were imported without the mandatory import permit from the Islamabad-based National Council for Conservation of Wildlife and at a much higher price than their original cost.

According to media reports, the KMC bought the tigers’ pair for Rs7.5 million from a contractor who had originally bought them for less than Rs500,000 from a European supplier.

Documents also showed that the cost of the tigers declared by the contractor was even less than the cost of airfare from Belgium to Pakistan, though KMC officials insisted that all rules had been followed while handing out the contract.

As for the two white lions, they were purchased at a price around 10 times higher than the one at which the contractor had acquired the pair of big cats; the pair of Panthera Leo had cost the contractor less than Rs1 million while the KMC purchased the carnivorous mammals for Rs10 million.

No inquiry was initiated in shady deals.

Published in Dawn, June 15th, 2014