Thiruvananthapuram: A man hit headlines last week when he jumped into a lion’s cage in Thiruvananthapuram zoo and came back alive. If the man wanted to end his life in a primitive way, well, he chose the wrong beast.
The two-year-old Gracy is the most humane of all the lions around, said Dr Jacob Alexander, the veterinary surgeon attached to the zoo. Gracy was reared by Dr Alexander and trainer Vimal from the day it was born. Gracy’s mother Aishwarya could not nurse the newborn because she was tired with a tumor in her stomach. The cub itself was taken ill with two of its legs paralyzed.
Dr Alexander and Vimal fed goat milk to the cub and took it on short walks as part of physiotherapy. They even played football with the practically orphaned cub.
Humans meant care for Gracy, not food. That explains the lion’s behavior in the face of dangerous provocations from Murukan, who climbed over the barb fence and jumped over the moat into Gracy’s open-air enclosure. He advanced towards the lounging lion, who just backed out into the cage. Injured during the stunt, Murukan crawled behind the beast. Still he lived to tell the tale.
The zookeepers diverted the lion to another enclosure and forced out the intruder. Murukan was later sent to his family in Ottappalam, who had been searching for him for a couple of days.
Gracy’s behavior is not uncommon among lions, Dr Alexander said. Lions do not normally smell food in humans. They are harmless when well-fed. Of course, Gracy was hungry. The lion was waiting for its brunch of seven kilograms of beef when a man in blue shirt accosted it around 11 am. However, the young lion was not used to live prey.
Murukan would have succeeded in his plan had he jumped into the den of Gracy’s father, Ayush. The 17-year-old lion, who eats 10 kilograms of beef a day, is known for its short temper. The old lion does not entertain anyone but a trusted zookeeper by its cage.
Gracy, however, is a gentle creature. Dr Alexander said that he could recall only one instance of the lion’s violent behavior. The cub was lying on the vet’s lap, sipping from a milk bottle, when a stranger passed by. The irritated cut nibbled at the vet’s hand.
If you are planning to watch the newsmakers in the Thiruvananthapuram zoo, better hurry. Gracy and Ayush will soon be shifted to the lion safari in Neyyar. They will be replaced by two beasts from the Hyderabad zoo.
