Infection Kills 10 Tigers at Zoo

Limping and gasping, 10 royal Bengal tigers--including seven rare white tigers--have died at an Indian zoo despite being injected with antibiotics, officials said. Some tigers lay dead in their concrete enclosures at the Nandankanan Zoo, which holds India’s largest collection of royal Bengal tigers and the world’s largest collection of white tigers. Veterinarians found that the animals had contracted sleeping sickness, or trypanosomiasis, an illness spread by tsetse flies, said S.K. Patnaik, chief wildlife warden at the zoo in Bhubaneshwar, the Orissa state capital. Seven tigers survived, he said.