African Lioness Of Eight Years Escapes From Enclosure

An African lioness in the city's Nehru Zoological Park emerged out of its enclosure today, and chased and wounded an animal keeper. Fortunately he escaped with relatively minor injuries.

The lioness, Sirisha, aged about eight, is suffering from hind limb paralysis, and has been kept under treatment in a night house to help it heal. Assistant Animal Keeper Syed Hussain was cleaning the night houses this morning, and was reportedly negligent in locking the door of Sirisha's enclosure properly after cleaning it.

The animal came out of the enclosure, and injured Hussain with its paws. He ran out of the area screaming for the zone employees to take precautions, the support staff immediately reported the incident to the higher authorities. The main gates were then closed, and fortunately it is a holiday for the zoo every Monday. The security personal and the veterinary team came with the tranquilising darts within 10 minutes - the veterinary team was luckily in the premises for health check-ups.

The veterinary team tranquilized the lioness which was near crocodile moat, and it was sent back to the night house within 20 minutes. Hussain was immediately taken to the Osmania General Hospital for the treatment, and has been discharged from the hospital and is recuperating at home.

An enquiry committee has been appointed by the curator of the zoo Sunil Hiremath to look into the incident. The preliminary report submitted by the Deputy Range Officer said that Hussain had shown carelessness in following the safety measures, and also that Monday being a zoo holiday resulted in limited staff members being on the premises. The committee has also decided to call experts to train the staff on responding during such incidents, and also to work on reducing any such future incidents.