An African elephant has been euthanized at Zoo Miami
Machito is the first elephant to die at the zoo. The male elephant was 32 years old and arrived at the zoo as an orphaned calf from Zimbabwe. Zoo officials told the Miami news station WTVJ that Machito had been treated for weeks for an illness that began as a stiff front limb and progressed to lethargy, weight loss and breathing problems. The elephant eventually was unable to sleep or lie down. Zoo Miami says Machito was euthanized when staff could no longer prevent him from suffering. The illness that afflicted the elephant has yet to be diagnosed. A necropsy will be performed. Zoo Miami is home to five other elephants. All those animals are more than 35 years old. – AP

This entry was posted on July 5th, 2012 at 12:21 pm by Bev Clark and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.