The baby was born on Thursday morning in cage 2. Zoo officials said that the baby was very weak since birth and the mother rejected the baby. It died due to lack of nursing from its mother.

"Dhaka Zoo always attracts more visitors when new babies are born. The crowd was quite curious about the Samber cage on Friday", said Kazi Fazlul Haque, curator, Dhaka Zoo.

"We cannot handle newborns after they are born. Wild animals are sensitive to smell. If we handle the baby it gets human odour. Mothers usually rejects babies with unusual odour", Haque added.

Samber, also known as sambur or sambhur is the common name for a large, unspotted, dark brown Asian deer with mane, particularly of the Indian species.

They are mostly found in India and Nepal and eastward through Southeast Asia. Sambers live in forests, alone or in small groups. Samber's primary food group is grass, sprigs, fruit and bamboo buds.

Dhaka Zoo brought 10 mature Sambers from Africa in the 1980s. Later the number increased to 15. In the 1990s four of the Sambers were sent to Kuwait and Bahrain as gifts.

Earlier a week ago four of the Sambers died of Tuberculosis. Current number of Samber population in the zoo is 7. Among them 5 female and 2 male.

Haque said that they were not sure whether the mother had tuberculosis.

"To prevent the disease we are adding medicines with the food of all the Sambers", Haque said.

Food supply was increased for the entire herd, said zoo officials. For each deer they are serving 12kgs of grass, 1kg vegetable.

Dhaka zoo has a good reputation of breeding kept animals. Early this year dingo, Langur (hanuman), holook gibbon (ulluk), nilgai, waterbuck, and lion families saw some new faces. Zoo officials are also thinking participating in international animal exchange programme.

On an average day Dhaka Zoo attracts around 10 thousand visitors. The numbers reaches up to 30 thousand on Fridays and other holidays.