A lioness has killed her four newborn cubs, two of them by devouring, at the zoo in March 2014. This is sad and goes to show the failure of the zoo authorities to properly handle the Lioness and to assess her needs and psychology.

The zoo management confirmed the happening and said the lioness of African origin, which was born here about five years ago, gave birth to four cubs on March 16 and ate two of them within a few days. Two others were found dead.

Zoo Curator Iftikhar Ahmed said that the lioness after her delivery attended to her cubs for a couple of days after which she did not feed them. He said special milk made of Germany was brought from Islamabad to save the cubs but the management found two of them missing on March 19.

He said the lioness seemed to have devoured the two while one was found dead in the cage. The fourth cub was separated from the mother. A postmortem examination of the cub was conducted and it transpired that the lioness killed it in a bid to eat it. Pakistanis love doing postmortem; the reliability of such postmortem remains questionable.

The zoo management re-united the cub with its mother who killed it on March 24 and its remains were found in the cage.

The curator said it appeared that the mother again became violent and aggressive towards her cub and attempted to eat it. The curator denied negligence in the care of the cubs.

A veterinarian said such lioness species sometimes turned carnivorous and ate its cubs. The question is why?