The Canadian Press
WINNIPEG–A polar bear that was rescued as a cub and brought to a zoo in Winnipeg has died, zoo officials say.
The Assiniboine Park Zoo said in a news release that “Eli,” a three-year-old polar bear that has lived at the zoo since November, 2015, started showing mild clinical symptoms Friday.
The zoo said his condition worsened by Saturday and he was anesthetized for further diagnosis, but died a short time later.
A preliminary necropsy showed internal swelling of tissues in the bear’s throat and neck, which the zoo said likely interfered with his breathing.
The zoo added a full pathology report will be completed in the coming weeks.
Eli arrived at the zoo’s polar bear conservation centre as a cub with his brother, “York,” after their mother accidentally was hit by a cracker shell someone used to scare her and the cubs away from a building entrance in Churchill, Man.
“We are all deeply saddened by Eli’s passing,” Gary Lunsford, the zoo’s senior director of animal care and conservation, said in the news release.
“He was a part of our zoo family and this is a heart-breaking loss for our staff and visitors,” he noted.
The zoo said wildlife experts believed that when the bears were rescued as 11-month-old cubs, they were too young to have survived on their own.
It added polar bears need to stay with their mothers for at least the first two winters to learn how to hunt and to have her protection from other bears.
Once at the zoo, it said the bears act as ambassadors for their species, as well as help educate visitors about climate change and the loss of sea ice.
The name Eli was chosen in an online vote, and was selected in honour of an elder from the First Nation that lived and hunted in the area between the Nelson and Hayes Rivers.
The zoo said it doesn’t believe any other bears, or other species, are at risk.
