A 2-year-old gorilla died of traumatic injuries last week at the Calgary Zoo in Alberta, Canada, after being struck by a hydraulic door that a staff member mistakenly activated, according to the zoo.
The western lowland gorilla, named Eyare, was the offspring of gorillas at the zoo and had been interacting with other gorillas on November 12 in an enclosure designated for feeding, observation, and training outside their habitat.
A staff member was attempting to separate Eyare, who weighed about 30 pounds, from the other gorillas for a vaccination training session when the incident occurred. “A team member intended to activate a door that they were looking at, but accidentally used the control lever for a different door,” said Colleen Baird, the zoo’s director of animal care. “As that door was closing, Eyare was passing through, and she was struck by it.”
Despite attempts at lifesaving measures, Eyare died shortly after 9:30 a.m. Ms. Baird noted that the staff member operating the door was “devastated” and was immediately removed from the workplace. The individual was not new to the job and was experienced in working with gorillas.
The staff member will undergo additional training before returning to work in the area, which houses six other western lowland gorillas. The zoo plans to implement corrective actions, including assessing the locations and design of the door controls, and changing the levers to enhance staff members' ability to identify which doors they control.
Eyare’s death is not the first incident involving a hydraulic door at the Calgary Zoo. In 2009, a capybara and a spider monkey died in similar circumstances, according to Animal Justice, a Canadian animal law advocacy group. Other incidents have included the drowning of an otter and seven penguins in 2016, as well as the deaths of more than 40 stingrays in 2008 due to oxygen deprivation.
Over the past decade, the zoo has experienced an average annual death rate of 3 percent among its aging animal population, primarily due to geriatric or disease-related causes, aside from the recent incidents. Camille Labchuk, executive director of Animal Justice, remarked that the Calgary Zoo appears to have an unusually high death rate.
A 2010 review by the Canadian Association of Zoos and Aquariums indicated that the annual number of animal deaths at the zoo nearly doubled from 2000 to 2009, reaching about 200, although this increase was not linked to a change in the size of the animal population.
Ms. Baird explained that the earlier incidents occurred at an older facility that is no longer in use and emphasized the zoo's commitment to transparency. “We have a transparency policy, so we want our community to know what’s going on, as it’s going on, within hours of an incident,” she stated. “We don’t wait for an incident like this to happen for us to make a change.”
Eyare’s death has deeply affected the zoo community. “I say goodbye to animals on a regular basis because they are aging out, or they’re geriatric,” Ms. Baird said. “This one hurts. This one is not planned. This one is a mistake.”