On Friday 10th January male zebra, Ziggy, sadly passed away following an incident in our mixed species African habitat.
Ziggy had lived happily with the other species, including the rhino, in this habitat since November 2017 when he arrived.
On Friday, two of the rhinos, Astrid and her son Tayo, were sparring with one another, which is a regular and natural behaviour for this species. On this occasion, unfortunately Astrid attempted to move Ziggy out of the way and in doing so unintentionally punctured his stomach and he died of these injuries a few minutes later.
In the light of these rare events, we review our care for the animals to minimise the risk of these incidents reoccurring. As a result, the Animal Care Team will continue to closely monitor the animals behaviour in the coming weeks.
These sorts of incidents are extremely rare and we are devastated by this loss, Ziggy was a much loved animal who will be dearly missed.
We would really like to thank our supporters for the well wishes at this difficult time and thank our fantastic Animal Care Team who dealt with this very difficult situation extremely professionally.
