WINNIPEG – Another animal has unexpectedly died at Assiniboine Park Zoo.
One of the zoo’s two harbour seals died after becoming trapped in an underwater drain.
“Seals are very inquisitive it looks like he was perhaps investigating the drain and became stuck,” the zoo’s director of zoological operations Dr. Brian Joseph told Global News Tuesday.
Caelum was one of two blind harbour seals transferred to Winnipeg’s zoo this past summer from the Vancouver Aquarium. He was found dead Monday morning. The surviving seal is named Neptune.
Joseph said “corrective action” had been taken to make sure the drain no longer poses a threat, including installing a grate. There will be no further investigation into the death: “There’s nothing more to gain, we’ve looked at the situation, there’d be no new information,” Joseph says.
A national animal protection group disagrees. Assiniboine Park Zoo should allow an independent audit of its practices as the Calgary Zoo did after a string of animal deaths, says the executive director of Zoocheck.
“It’s best to have an outside agency come and review things,” Rob Laidlaw told Global news in a telephone interview from Toronto. Laidlaw notes that a sea lion died a similar death, trapped in a drain at an aquarium in San Antonio, Texas in 2010. Laidlaw says that tragedy made the Winnipeg seal death “forseeable.”
Laura Cabak, a spokesperson for Assiniboine Park Zoo, says staff were not aware of the San Antonio incident and can’t say whether it’s similar. According to the San Antonio Express-News, “The U.S. Agriculture Department issued an official warning to the park after closing its investigation into the incident in January 2012.”
Staff were unable to show a Global News reporter and cameraman the particular drain that trapped the seal.
In September, Assiniboine Park Zoo lost one of its Amur tigers when a gate was accidentally left open. Baikal, a 19-year-old male, was killed in a fight with two other male tigers.
Also in September, the zoo was forced to close the underwater polar bear viewing area in the Journey to Churchill exhibit when the bears chewed through silicone sealant. Staff had to drain the massive pools to make repairs and the viewing area remains closed.
In July, wolves managed to tunnel their way into the polar bear enclosure but there were no confrontations between the potentially rival predators.
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