Volunteers, staff, and visitors alike to the Wilder Institute/Calgary Zoo were devastated in what zoo officials called a huge shock, following the sudden death of much beloved polar bear Baffin.
Baffin arrived at the Calgary Zoo late last year as part of a renovation of the Canadian Wilds and a major habitat expansion to allow for polar bears to be safely cared for.
Both Baffin and Siku came from the Assiniboine Zoo, and were originally saved from certain death in the wild as motherless cubs by being placed into permanent human care.
Interim Chief Executive Officer for the Wilder Institute/Calgary Zoo, Jamie Dorgan, said that Baffin and fellow bear Siku were acting normally before Baffin’s death.
“At approximately 11:30 [a.m.] today, our polar bears were seen sparring in their lower pool, which is a normal behaviour from them that we see regularly. But all of a sudden we noticed that one of the polar bears didn’t surface, and Baffin wasn’t seen for a few minutes,” Dorgan said.
Dorgan said that a volunteer immediately contacted the care team whey they did not see Baffin resurface. The bear was found by staff deceased at the bottom of the pool.
“The animal care team immediately shifted Siku, the other polar bear, back off of the habitat so that they could assess the situation and see what was going on. Once he was shifted, and the animal care team was able to enter, it was determined that unfortunately Baffin was deceased in the pool,” Dorgan said.
The enclosure, considered state-of-the-art for polar bear habitats at zoos in North America when opened in 2023, included an upper and lower pool for the bears, along with multiple cooling points throughout the habitat that could be controlled by the bears themselves.
Addressing questions regarding possible causes of death, he said that currently it would be speculation to offer a cause until a necropsy on Baffin had been completed.
The necropsy would be performed by the zoo’s veterinarians and a trained pathologist, and would be thorough to look for any causes of what led to Baffin’s death, Dorgan said.
“We do that for any animal that dies here regardless of if we knew the reason for the death or not. So, it’d be looking at everything, and all possible tests will be run, looking at anything that might show any signs,” Dorgan said.
He said that an external examination of Baffin by veterinarians didn’t show anything that would have indicated the cause of death.
“Every time we have any animal death of any kind, as I mentioned before, whether it’s appears to be something that we know, or not. We always follow through on seeing is there anything we can learn,” said Dorgan.
A fuller picture, he said, would be available from the necropsy later in July, and would be released to the public at that time.
