Sad News from the Calgary Zoo

[Ephraim]

putting alot thought into projects at the Calgary Zoo is not thier forte

[kwirky]

"oh i want a hippopotamus for christmas"

The baby hippo died after that old media campaign spun down, in case anyone would like to know. Telus's commercial was kinda morbid I think actually lol. When I saw the ad for a "stingray touch tank" at the c-train station I knew there were some nasties going on and eventually something would happen. First off they file off the stingers of the rays. I'm sure some people'd question whether that's humane. And then you've got hundreds of hands in the water; if all those introduced chemicals aren't a recipe for disaster I don't know what is.

I'm singling it out as a marketing gimick to get people going to the zoo. Unfortunately it was at the cost of the animals. I dislike PETA but I think the zoo crossed a line in order to collect more entrance fees

[Treebeard]

I have a hunch that the zoo was unprepared and uneducated to handle such an exhibit. San Diego Sea World has had an interactive California Bat Ray exhibit for years and I have never heard of any disasters of this magnitude occurring there. The ray tank was one of my favorite exhibits at Sea World, and yes, you could touch them.

The Calgary zoo has been getting far too much bad publicity recently and they have some some serous issues to resolve. I am not impressed!

[ElGuappo]

sounds to me lke the guy running the tank had insufficent knowledge for the job. there is absolutly no reason not to have a marine biologist in there for some thing that is this costly already.(pre Deaths)

[Keri]

I didn't know the rays were altered (stingers trimmed)
Not sure how I feel about that


I'd be suspicious of someone putting something in the tank with so many deaths so soon, if all other params were in check, too weird.

What's wrong with ppl??

[Delphinus]

Might be wrong but I thought I heard on the news this morning that they had ruled out sabotage. Thing is yesterday they were saying they had ruled out equipment failure.

So many deaths in such a short timeframe though, doesn't "just happen." There's an explanation for this ... whether they find out what it is or whether they come clean with their findings remains to be seen.

Other public aquariums have similar exhibits, although in hindsight I seem to recall that the ones I have seen have been larger with maybe half as many individuals. But you'd think they'd look to other SUCCESSFUL tanks in other public aquariums and try to model after those...

Guess I'm now inclined to agree with Mark that this was just another poorly thought out folly. I had assumed they would hire an experienced aquarist from another public facility but it seems that they were just learning it as they go. (I was astounded at how they transported the Hippopotamus and they reacted with surprise when she died. I was hoping the rays exhibit was not another one like this, but I see I was wrong. You put some measure of faith into the professionals to know how to do their jobs, or to at least put some legitimate research into things first ....)

Death count is now 35, they lost one of the remaining 8 this morning. What a terrible tragedy.

[Ephraim]

That many animals do not die that close together in time frame due to disease, especially after being acclimated. The only thing that will kill that many fish that quickly is something environmental. With the volume of water in that exhibit i find it very unlikely that something accientally put into the systems via someones hands caused the death. The zoo PR is lying, it either was an equipment failure of some sort, or something wrong with the water that could be tested for whether that be salinity, ammonia, nitrate, or nitrite.

[Delphinus]

Exactly what I was thinking. You just don't have that kind of mortality without an explanation. Whether we ever hear the whole story remains to be seen, I highly doubt it, there's a probably a spin machine at work now.

[Ephraim]

with a ceo that refers to the animals as "display units" you cant really expect much more.

[i have crabs]

im guessing a possible disolved oxygen issue but just a guess, i would think if it was polluted by someone either by accident or on purpose it would have to be alot of something to mess up a tank that size and i just dont see it happening.
also trimming the stingers is the same as trimming your fingernails but im not shure how you hold down a 2' ray and trim its barb? and im quite shure the baby hippo did not die it was on loan from a zoo in quebec and is now back thier in a brand new exzibit.