Winnipeg zoo polar bear dies during surgery

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This article was published 23/06/2022 (1211 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A female polar bear at Assiniboine Park Zoo died Tuesday of cardiac arrest, while under anesthesia after dental surgery, officials say.

Aurora was nine years old.

The bear was initially found wandering near the Churchill airport, and had lived at the Winnipeg zoo since 2013. Despite attempts at the time to locate the bear’s mother, it was never found and Aurora likely would’ve died in the wild, senior director of zoological operations Grant Furniss said Thursday.

“Aurora was a beautiful, very well-loved bear — a fantastic ambassador for her species in the wild and she will be very, very deeply and sorely missed by our guests, staff and volunteers,” Furniss told reporters at the zoo.

As a cub in the wild, the bear had chewed sticks and rocks, damaging its teeth extensively.

“At the zoo, she’s been receiving ongoing dental treatment and that’s to provide pain relief, any kind of infection or longer-term life-threatening diseases that can occur from having bad teeth,” Furniss said.

The bear had had seven dental treatments prior to its death, including four root canals, improving its quality of life, Furniss said.

“The (Tuesday) procedure actually went very well, but towards the end, when we were wanting to reverse the anesthesia, Aurora went into cardiac arrest,” he said, noting the surgery was supervised by a specialized veterinary dentist.

The team worked to reverse the cardiac arrest, the director said, but was unsuccessful.

Furniss said the zoo will continue to do tests to determine what went wrong. “Preliminary investigations, there’s nothing conclusive that there was any underlying condition, but we will pursue it and try and find out exactly what happened.”

Furniss said polar bears typically survive up to 18 years in captivity, though Assiniboine Park Zoo once had one that survived into its 40s. In the wild, such bears typically live to around 15.

Aurora will be cremated. There are nine polar bears remaining at the zoo in two exhibits.

erik.pindera@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @erik_pindera