ZOO TRAGEDY

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 71, 25 March 1938, Page 12

ZOO TRAGEDY

BEAR KILLS BEAR

MIDNIGHT AFFRAY

Floss, one of the female Polar bears at the Newtown Zoo, was the victim of animal savagery late last night or early this morning. She was killed by the male Polar bear which was brought to Wellington from Hobart last month. Floss has. beeji at the Zoo for about fifteen years and was well known to visitors..

When the curator (Mr. J. Langridse) saw the bears at about 6 p.m. yesterday they were sleeping peacefully. No noise was heard during the night, but when Mr. Langridge visited the bear pit just before 6 a.m. today he found Floss disembowelled. The male was coverad with blood but bore no marks, and the other female had apparently not entered the fray at all.

"I don't think there could have been any fight," Mr. Langridge told a "Post" reporter, "because the male is not injured at all." He thought that the male must have annoyed Floss, and when she hit him (as she probably would) he must have attacked her.

The male—a huge animal—opposed all attempts by the keepers to remove the body this morning, and without effort carried it from one end of the pit to the other. Eventually a rope was passed around the carcass, and by this means it was lifted out.

According to Mr. Langridge, the bears had lived in peace together and had never fought before. They gave no trouble when fed last night. "The male was remarkably quiet for a Polar bear," he said, "but Floss was a very surly beast. By the state of the body I think death must have occurred after midnight. It must have been sudden, for any noise would have aroused my does and myself."

The carcass is to be used as a museum exhibit.