Swiss perspectives in 10 languages

Three snow leopards born in Basel, one of whom didn’t survive

Two snow leopard cubs
The two surviving leopard cubs have been named Vakaris and Vishal. Keystone-SDA

Three snow leopard cubs were born at Basel Zoo in early summer. One of them, however, did not survive more than two months.

+Get the most important news from Switzerland in your inbox

The young female cub Vaya suffered from a malformation of the acetabulum, a bone in the pelvic girdle located on the hip.

Born in June, Vaya’s growth was stunted compared to that of her two littermates. She had a dysfunctional gait in her hind legs, which she dragged under her belly, Basel Zoo reported on Wednesday.

This phenomenon normally ceases a few weeks after birth, but this was not the case with Vaya, who died on August 23. Her autopsy is currently underway.

+ Zurich Zoo unveiled: animal life as you’ve never seen it

The two surviving leopard cubs have been named Vakaris and Vishal. The latter had to have an operation on an eyelid. Like his brother, he is now back in good health. This is the second litter for the snow leopard pair formed by Rangi and Mekong.

Translated from French by DeepL/ts

This news story has been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team. At SWI swissinfo.ch we select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools such as DeepL to translate it into English. Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles.

If you want to know more about how we work, have a look here, if you want to learn more about how we use technology, click here, and if you have feedback on this news story please write to english@swissinfo.ch.

Popular Stories

Most Discussed

News

In compliance with the JTI standards

More: SWI swissinfo.ch certified by the Journalism Trust Initiative

You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here . Please join us!

If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.

SWI swissinfo.ch - a branch of Swiss Broadcasting Corporation SRG SSR

SWI swissinfo.ch - a branch of Swiss Broadcasting Corporation SRG SSR