The lone white tigress of Jawaharlal Nehru Biological Park of Bokaro (JNBP), Ganga died on Friday in its enclosure in the zoo, sending shock waves among the animal lovers, regular visitors and local residents of Bokaro.

Though a team of forest department reached the park in the afternoon after getting information and initiated a process for the post mortem of the dead body to find out the reasons of the death, the Zoo authorities claimed that the Tigress died a natural death after completing its age.

Samrendra Jha in charge of the Bokaro Zoo, denied the charges of the tigress dying due to some ailment and said, “The normal age of tiger is between 12 to 15 years and Ganga was of 16 years,” “She died after completing her age and was not suffering from any illness” further said Jha and tigress had lost all its teeth due to old age."

When asked by the media about the lack of posting of veterinarian in zoo after the retirement of Gautam Chankravarty around a month ago, Jha said “Though there is no regular posting of doctor for a month but we are taking the services of retired Vet doctor who keep visiting the park on regular basis."

Sasikant Mandal, Bokaro Forester said, “We will carry out the postmortem of the deceased tigress to find out the reasons for it’s death although the zoo authorities claimed that the tigress died a natural death after completing it’s age".

Asked by media about the lack of posting of regular veterinarian in zoo for about a month, he said, “Posting of veterinarian is an internal matter of Bokaro zoo administration but I feel that there should be regular veterinarian in the zoo to look after such large number of animals.”

Notably, Ganga was brought from Maitri Bagh in Bhilai of Chhattisgarh along with its male partner, Satpuda in exchange of an Emu, a peacock a pair of Parakeets on January, 2012 by the JNBP Bokaro operated by Bokaro Steel Limited."

Bokaro zoo at present has around 250 animals.