Calgary zoo officials say one of their polar bears died by drowning after his throat was crushed by a fellow bear in rough play.
Senior veterinarian Sandie Black says the death of seven-year-old Baffin was the result of a “tragically misplaced grab” by his companion bear Siku.
Black says the bears were roughhousing in a pond at the zoo’s polar bear exhibit Friday morning when Baffin went underwater and did not resurface.
A necropsy revealed eight-year-old Siku had grabbed Baffin at just the right spot to crush his trachea, causing almost instantaneous death.
Black says the behaviour of the two bears was normal and the kind of play that happens in the wild.
She says Siku is showing normal bear behaviour and that there are no immediate plans to replace Baffin.
Both bears had been transferred from Winnipeg’s Assiniboine Park Zoo.
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They had been orphaned at less than a year old and would not have been expected to survive on their own.