Tiger death hurts zoo’s credibility

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This article was published 26/09/2014 (4117 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

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Assiniboine Park Zoo’s ability to safely look after its animals and visitors is being questioned after one tiger fatally mauled another Thursday.

Baikal, a 19-year-old Amur tiger, died in a fight with two-year-old Vasili, also an Amur, after a zookeeper left a gate unlocked between the two enclosures.

Julie Woodyer, campaign director for Zoocheck Canada, a 30-year-old national animal-protection charity focusing on the well-being of wild animals in zoos, said the death of Baikal is the third incident in the last two months at the zoo.

“If the public wasn’t at risk, why didn’t they go in with fire hoses to separate the cats? Don’t they have a plan for this?” Woodyer said.

“They always say the public wasn’t at risk, but what if there had been another gate open — it could have been different.”

Woodyer said the zoo had to close parts of the Journey to Churchill exhibit last July when wolves dug under the barrier that separates them from the polar bears and entered the female polar bear enclosure. The Journey to Churchill’s underwater tunnel was closed earlier this month after the polar bears began chewing through the silicone seals on the glass.

“They should be initiating an independent review of the safety policies at the zoo and also the welfare of the animals,” she said.

“And it shouldn’t be CAZA (Canada’s Accredited Zoos and Aquariums) because they’re a member. The focus of the zoo is on visitor experience, but that’s being put ahead of animal welfare.”

Zoo officials said Baikal, part of the zoo’s collection for about five years, got through a “mistakenly left-unlocked” gate, allowing him to get from a transfer corridor into the zoo’s new tiger enclosure. That enclosure contained two other male tigers, two-year-old twins Vasili and Sankha, originally from the Calgary Zoo.

Vasili and Baikal attacked each other, with Baikal dying from his wounds.

Margaret Redmond, president and CEO of the Assiniboine Park Conservancy, said there will be “a grieving process” for zookeepers and staff.

Redmond said there will be a full investigation to determine how a gate was left unlocked.

Redmond said while students from a high school outing were at the exhibit when the fight between the two tigers began, they were quickly hustled away so they didn’t see the death.

“At no time were zoo visitors in danger,” she said.

Chris Enright, head of veterinary services, said the tigers were just doing what tigers do in the wild.

“It was a tiger defending its territory against someone who is seen as a rival,” Enright said.

“You can’t blame the tiger.”

The zoo officials said the exhibit could reopen as early as today.

Massimo Bergamini, CAZA’s executive director, said the Winnipeg zoo is jointly accredited by both CAZA and its American counterpart, so it has already gone through an extensive inspection by Canadian and American zoo professionals. The AZA accreditation was announced just days ago.

“The safety of visitors and welfare of animals is our first priority, so we take incidents like this very seriously,” Bergamini said, adding the zoo will have to prepare a detailed report on the incident for review by both CAZA and AZA.

“The goal of the exercise is to determine whether systemic issues were at the root of the incident,” he said.

“We have every confidence in the integrity of our processes and suggest that people wait for the report before jumping to any conclusion.”

Enright said Baikal was on loan from the Toronto Zoo after having been at another zoo before coming to Winnipeg. No official for the Toronto Zoo was available for comment Thursday.

Enright said Baikal was already older than tigers get to be in the wild and suffered from kidney disease that had reduced his weight.

“He would have been smaller than the younger males,” the veterinarian said.

Hours after the incident, zoo visitors were shocked to hear what happened.

“I’m surprised this happened here, but it happens in the wild,” said Angela Janisse.

Danielle Tetrault said “It’s more the fault of the zookeeper. You can’t expect tigers to not be tigers.”

It’s not the first tiger that has died at the zoo suddenly.

Two years ago, a one-year-old Amur tiger at the zoo named Reka died of an apparent infection after being tranquilized during a veterinary examination.

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca

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