Porbandar: The sole alive lioness kept under ambitious Lion Gene Pool Project in Satvirda Nesh in the Barda Wildlife Sanctuary in Porbandar district of Gujarat has given birth to four cubs.

DCF Porbandar D J Pandya today said that 3 of the cubs were female and one was male.

‘The only concern, however, is that the mother lioness Sarita, due to inexperience of whom two of her earlier cubs had died in April this year, was not taking care of the recently born cubs. She gave birth to the cubs at 2 am in the wee hours of August 21. But it was observed that she was not taking care of the cubs, not even feeding them her breast milk. Now they are being fed on powdered milk. If they survive the initial days well then they could be easily reared to adulthood,’ he added.

Notably on May 13 this year one of the two lioness under the project, 8 years old Parvati had died due to cub-birth related complications. She had given birth to a healthy female cub on May 6 and then a dead cub was born on May 9. She was not keeping well since then. The surviving cub of hers was sent to Sakkarbaug zoo in Junagadh and was doing well.

Notably on April 3 earlier, the two healthy cubs born of lioness Sarita (who has given birth to 4 cubs now) had died after getting injured due to inability of the first time mother Sarita to carry them properly, a normal affair among big cats.

In the Sarvirda Nesh there are two male lions Avon and Nagraj and one lioness Sarita under the project.

Notably, the gestation period of a lioness is about 108 days, and the litter size varies from one to six cubs, two to four being usual.

DeshGujarat