Animal obituaries

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 2005:

Splash, 15, a 16-foot male orca born at Marineland Canada
in Niagara, Ontario, sold to SeaWorld in 1992, died on April 5 at
SeaWorld San Diego. Splash suffered from a series of infections and
illnesses that apparently began after he seriously scraped his face
in a 1994 collision with the side of his tank.

Dare, 6, a Kemp’s Ridley sea turtle, died on March 10 at
the Karen Beasley Sea Turtle Rescue & Rehabilitation Center on
Topsail Island, North Carolina. Found as a stranded one-year-old in
Dare County in 1999, Dare was emaciated and battered from collisions
with boats. She was to be returned to the sea in September 1999 when
Hurricane Floyd hit. Volunteers fleeing the rescue center took her
home with them, but then had to flee their home as well. Flood
water contaminated Dare’s tank, and she never fully recovered.

Mumbali, 7, a gorilla who lived her whole life at the
Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago, was euthanized on April 28, after
three weeks of unsuccessful treatment, due to acute kidey failure
from an unknown cause. Her 9-year-old sister Rollie fell ill first
with similar symptoms, but got better.

Trixie, 18, a polar bear born to zoo-bred parents at the
Bronx Zoo in 1987, transferred to the Roger Williams Park Zoo in
Providence, Rhode Island in 1989, died under sedation on April 29
as she was being prepared for temporary relocation to the
Indianapolis Zoo while her habitat was rebuilt.

Big Red, four months, a Duroc pig used by Randall’s High
Diving Racers, a carnival show operated by Virgil and Velma Randall
of Arkansas, was electrocuted on March 17 at the Star of Texas Fair
& Rodeo, after plunging four feet into a tank of water. Another
pig dived into the water seconds later but was unharmed. The
Randalls claimed it was their first accident in 15 years.

Sitka, 10, a female Pacific walrus who was captured under
an aborignal subsistence hunting quota in 1995, residing at the
Indianapolis Zoo since May 1995, died during surgery on April 7.
The surgical team had just removed a pine cone that blocked her
intestines and kept her from eating or drinking.

Tsavo, 14, a giraffe, was euthanized at the Columbus Zoo
on April 23 after his keepers found him lying in his cage and in
eight hours of effort were unable to get him up. The previous day,
two Columbus Zoo zebras named Flora and Fauna panicked and broke
their necks by bolting into fence posts, after being moved to a
temporary holding area at Darby Dan Farms. Two weeks earlier, a
giraffe namd Kenya died from heart failure while under treatment for
a chronic illness. All four animals lived in a section of the zoo
that is to be replaced in five years with a $125 million African
Savanna exhibit.

Buenos, 53, a black spider monkey believed to have been
the world’s oldest non-human primate other than great apes, died
from coronary trouble on March 26 at the Japan Monkey Center in
Aichi. “Just as we were preparing to apply for the Guinness Book,
she passed away peacefully,” center manager Akira Kato told Agence
France Press. “While lying on a bed, she always wanted to hold our
hands,” Kato remembered, speculating that “Her calm and kind
personality greatly helped” her longevity. “Also,” Kato said, “she
started living with a young male monkey 10 years ago, which might
have excited her.”