Knut the polar bear RIP and mysterious zoo deaths

Like Knut at the Berlin Zoological Garden, who was born in captivity and suddenly died on 19 March 2011, convulsing and drowning in front of hundreds of people, there have been a lot of recent deaths at the Calgary Zoo. Before this, there were only sometimes mass butterfly problems, due to heating failures in the old conservatory. It started with the cownose stingrays, which sadly succumbed to something mysterious - even the police investigated - that turned out to be poor oxygenation in the tank of the popular new exhibit (May '08), most likely. I don't know what happened to the second batch after the 1 died in shipping. One day the kids love the critters, in the next days the critters are dead. The capybara (one of my favourites!) was crushed accidentally; they are big rodents, like giant guineau pigs or cavy-deers.

Better days: Knut and Thomas Dörflein (1963–2008)

A baby elephant, a hippo, a wild goat, four gorillas and 41 stingrays. Next, at first unpublicized, a couple of spider monkeys, four feather-tailed sugar gliders, several mule deer, dozens of sebas and pallas bats, woodland caribou and muskox. Injured: African wild dogs and other animals. Since then, an endangered zebra, some Siberian tiger kittens, and 2 engangered whooping crane eggs that froze in a spring blizzard at the zoo's Devonian Wildlife Conservation Centre south of the city. It used to be lousy at catering and a better zoo.

It does seem strange now, over the last 15 years: very restructured and very involved in the special events and banquets, new buildings that are architecturally lovely, and interactive displays that make a lot of noise with crowding on the walkways and Mrs. Harvie's ghost in a Children's Zoo that went missing with the snake & bird building. I'll miss the beautiful old conservatory - many of the plants and little ecosystems didn't make it either. See: Zoocheck

Thomas Dörflein, 44, the Berlin zoo keeper who raised Knut from cub to full maturity,
was found dead in mysterious circumstances in a friend's Berlin apartment.