A newborn cub of white tigress Kika died at the Bengal Safari Park in Siliguri on Thursday.

With this, Kika lost both the cubs it gave birth to on July 12.

A white tiger's white fur is because of a rare colour mutation called leucism.

“Kika gave birth to two cubs at the safari park in July but both the cubs were born with complications," Jyotipriya Mallick, the state minister of the forest department, told The Telegraph over the phone on Friday after the second cub's death around a month after the first one.

Minister Mallick asked the park official to submit a report on the cub’s death.

“The post-mortem of the cub’s body will be conducted. I have also asked the park official to submit a report about it,” the forest minister said.

The park run by the Bengal forest department has 10 tigers now.

The safari park, also known as North Bengal Wild Animal Park, located on the northwest outskirts of Siliguri, is the only open-air zoological park in the state, where visitors can watch wild animals in open enclosures.

The park authority achieved success in captive breeding of royal Bengal tigers. It was in 2019 when Shila, one of the female tigresses here, gave birth to triplets at the park. Kika is one of them.

However, the back-to-back deaths of two tiger cubs have come as a big blow to the park authority’s captive breeding programme of tigers, a source said. The first cub died within hours of its birth. The issue also prompted the state forest minister to seek a report from the officials of the park.

Held with tusk

Officials of the Kurseong forest division in a joint raid along with the Sashastra Seema Bal and Wildlife Crime Control Bureau arrested five persons and recovered an elephant tusk from Naxalbari on Thursday evening.

Harikrishnan P.J., the divisional forest officer of Kurseong, said that foresters of Tukuriajhar range acted on source information and conducted the raid at Naxalbari bus stand area and arrested five persons with the tusk.