In less than two weeks, all five of the Philadelphia Zoo’s meerkats died. Now, the zoo needs to find out why.
“We had five meerkats that passed between June 1st and Monday,” Amy Shearer, chief experience officer for the zoo, said Wednesday in a phone interview. “The whole staff is devastated.”“The Zoo is pursuing the possibility that the dye that has been used for 30 years to differentiate some of the animals may have caused a toxic reaction,” Shearer said.
The zoo also uses Nyanzol-D on its small primates, according to Shearer, though it has now stopped using the chemical due to the recent fatalities. The dye had been used on the meerkats before, and none of the other animals at the zoo are sick, she said. They called the veterinary team, and quickly the first meerkat passed away. The team took the rest to a veterinary facility on campus, but that afternoon, three more died. The last one died this week.
Shearer said the zoo is working with Association of Zoos and Aquariums, along with the US Department of Agriculture, to determine the official cause of the animals’ untimely deaths.
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