Sad News from the Calgary Zoo

[ElGuappo]

well lets face it kids are not well know for having clean hands, and at a place like the zoo..........

have they done autopsies? maybe someone threw a pocket full of change in and they ate it. i remember way back when they seals die from this. they last time i was at the zoo (many moons ago) they still had pic and such on display. ithink they found almost 10 bucks in small change in its stomache.

[albert_dao]

Copper in nearly undetectable trace amounts = insta-death for sharks and rays.

[Brent F]

I still have a hard time with the idea of pollution from hands being the cause because I wouldn't think they would all die so closely together. It doesn’t make sense to me that 400 hands per hour for months does nothing, then suddenly they all die in one day? I wouldn't think pollution would act that quickly.

A more plausible scenario that could be caused by hands would be introduction of a disease such as salmonella which is a common problem for zoos. I used salmonella as an example because when I worked at a zoo in the late 70s salmonella was a common reason for animals dying suddenly.

Another plausible scenario would be accidental addition / spillage of a large enough quantity of a chemical used at a zoo. For example, there are sterilizing chemicals in displays to prevent disease from the feces. A tub of chemical accidentally introduced could cause sudden death. There could be a copper based chemical, which as Albert mentioned, would be very toxic. Copper is common in landscaping material as a rot inhibitor.