JOIN USA 13-year-old sloth bear, James, succumbed to tuberculosis at the Bear Rescue and Rehabilitation Centre (BRRC) in Bannerghatta on Thursday.
According to Dr Arun A Sha, James was doing well until last month, when it refused to eat one day.
After that, it started showing erratic food habits. Though it was administered drugs on time, it showed little improvement. The post mortem report revealed infection in the lungs, he said.
James was rescued from a kalandar in 2007.
On the rise in the number of sloth bears dying of tuberculosis, Dr Sha said that they were doing their best to curb the infection by isolating them. However, they failed to zero in on how the bears got infected.
Sloth bears Karan, Gokul, Vishal, Ratnakar, Sumathi and Pooja too are showing symptoms similar to James, he said.
From January, as many as 21 sloth bears have died, including six due to old age. Now there are only 92 bears at the rescue centre.