Something similiar almost happens to a hippo in Taman Safari as well, but not a pingpong ball. A plastic filled with trash was literally thrown into it, which thankfully was discovered before any of it was swallowed.
December 2019: A fire at African Safari Wildlife Park killed 10 animals: 10 animals were killed in a fire at the African Safari Wildlife Park in Ohio | CNN The "Giant Eland Tragedy" situation created the loss of an opportunity for a viable giant eland population in North America: Giant Eland Left in North America
The all but inevitable loss of Chapultapec Zoo's pandas is sad. They're down to one and after this one passes they will have to lease. It sounds like there is no interest in leasing. Down to its last panda, Mexico ponders what could come next
North America in general is loosing their panda population, leasing or otherwise, so it seems. Shortly we will be down to Atlanta and National, with a rather uncertain future.
It has been a couple of years but in 2021 all the stingrays at ZooTampa and 7 out 10 African penguins at the Florida Aquarium died. The Zoo eventually said it was due to a "supersaturation event" and ended up demolishing the whole touch tank area and are rebuilding it (to open this year). The aquarium never said what happened and quickly replaced the birds. The aquarium opened a decidedly terrible exhibit in early 2022, however they are planning (2024/5) a new large outdoor habitat. news link
I also wouldn't call it "tragic" that North America may no longer have giant pandas in zoos. If anything, I'd argue the "tragic" part is that there are still multiple US zoos willing to take out $1.1 million a year loans from the CCP in order to keep pandas. Giant pandas are one species that I truly wish no zoos would invest in.
Sent em to Calgary, then the pandemic happened and they couldn’t afford to keep them, so they went back to China.
Also the moral value of the cost. It'd be one thing if the money was all going to conservation efforts, but it's not. It's going to the Chinese Government, which isn't exactly transparent about where it is going. In the current day and age, I just don't think it's acceptable for the zoos to be sending that money without knowing what it going to be used for, especially not in light of what has been happening in Hong Kong and Taiwan. Everything surrounding the panda diplomacy situation is inherently political, and it simply just isn't something that I morally feel zoos should be wading into at the moment.
