On the outset, this is a cute image, a new-born lion cub cuddling a teddy bear toy. The image is of a lion cub born in Machiya Safari Park in Jodhpur Rajasthan almost two weeks ago. The cub, born prematurely was abandoned by its mother. Its sibling died at birth. With the punishing heat of Jodhpur and its weak immunity, the cub had little chance to survive. “On June 14, he fell ill. We tried to revive him by putting him inside a crib with a teddy bear. We even put a ticking clock inside the toy to simulate heartbeat,” Dr Sharavan Singh Rathore

“The cub got attached to the soft toy. He would snuggle up to it, thinking it was his mother. Since mother’s milk was not available, we fed him about 15 ml of cow milk six times a day. But the cub’s weak immunity and Jodhpur’s heat proved too much for him,” he added.

It died on Sunday.

Its mother, along with a male lion were translocated to Jodhpur from Junagarh in Gujarat in March. However it had no provisions to make the lions comfortable from the extreme climate of Rajasthan.