FATAL FIGHT

Male Lion Killed by Mother of His Cubs in Indianapolis Zoo

They had cubs in 2015 and lived together for eight years prior to the incident.

Indianapolis Zoo officials announced Friday that one male lion was killed earlier this week by a female lion he previously had cubs with, The Indianapolis Star reports. A 10-year-old male African lion named Nyack died Monday morning after he was attacked by a female lion named Zuri. According to a press release, animal care staff heard “an unusual amount” of noise from the lions before the zoo opened, and saw Nyack and Zuri fighting in front of their three-year-old cub named Sukari. The newspaper reports zoo workers tried to break up the fight but were unsuccessful. Zuri reportedly “held Nyack by the neck until [he] stopped moving.” A necropsy reportedly revealed Nyack was killed after suffocating “from injuries to the neck.” The couple had cubs in 2015 and lived together for eight years with no indications of “unusual aggression, injuries or wounds” between them prior to Monday’s incident. The zoo said they have no plans to change how its surviving lions are managed, and wrote in a statement that Nyack “was a magnificent lion and he will be greatly missed.”