Latest news with #MinnesotaZoo
Yahoo
19-07-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Minnesota Zoo euthanizes Amur tiger after cancer diagnosis
Minnesota Zoo euthanizes Amur tiger after cancer diagnosis originally appeared on Bring Me The News. The Minnesota Zoo is remembering its 13-year-old female Amur tiger who died over the weekend. Sundari, known as Dari, was euthanized on July 12 due to an aggressive and incurable form of cancer, according to a Thursday announcement. She was diagnosed with mesothelioma, which is known to occur in wild cats, including tigers. "Her death is a profound loss to the Minnesota Zoo community and tiger conservation efforts around the world," the zoo said in a news release. Dari was born at the Minnesota Zoo in June 2012. Visitors were able to watch Dari give birth to and care for six cubs over the years. She delivered her last litter, Amaliya and Andrei, in May 2024. Her older cubs are Vera, Brosno, Vostok and Yana. The zoo says Dari was a "remarkable mother" who loved and played fiercely. 'Dari was more than a tiger—she was a powerful ambassador for her species,' Minnesota Zoo Director John Frawley said in a statement. 'Her legacy lives on in her cubs and in the hearts she touched. Our team is grieving, but we remain committed to our mission: to connect people, animals, and the natural world to save wildlife.' The zoo calls Dari a "key contributor" to the Amur Tiger Species Survival Plan, a global conservation effort to ensure the species doesn't go extinct. Amur tigers are currently considered endangered, with an estimated 400 left in the wild. The species was on the brink of extinction roughly 80 years ago. The Minnesota Zoo has facilitated the births of 46 Amur tiger cubs since its 1978 opening in Apple Valley. Nearly half of those cubs later had their own litters, contributing a total of 86 Amur tigers to the species' population, according to the zoo. This story was originally reported by Bring Me The News on Jul 18, 2025, where it first appeared. Solve the daily Crossword
CBS News
03-07-2025
- Science
- CBS News
New app helps Minnesotans track turtles, keep them safe while crossing roads
Minnesota summers means turtles are on the move, and a new app helps them cross roads safely. "I moved into a house at the intersection of twp ponds and I noticed turtles crossing frequently and also frequently getting hit by cars," said Kelly Olson. The reptile loves connected wetlands and moving in between them. Road mortality is one of the biggest threats for turtles in Minnesota, according to Wildlife Conservation Specialist Tricia Markle with the Minnesota Zoo. The problem is that roads often split bodies of water. "They do sense danger, they'll often kind of tuck back into their shell, they'll kind of react to traffic, they'll react to noise and vibration," said Markle. But if food, a potential mate or a nesting site is on the other side of that road — turtles will take the risk. "Turtles will just kind of go for it because they kind of rely on their shell to protect them but unfortunatley with a vehicle, that's not going to do the job," said Markle. A study of 30 sites around the metro found that 700 turtles died while crossing roads in one year. "If we scale that up across the state in our land of 10,000 lakes, we're probably looking at thousands, if not tens of thousands of turtles that are hit and killed on our roads every single year," said Markle. Olson had seen enough outside her home - so she teamed up with her sister on a solution: an app called TurtlTracker. Using GPS, the app notifies users of turtle hotspots, meaning areas where road crossings and mortalities are prevalent. But most importantly, users track turtles and learn how to safely intervene when one is on a road. Moving the animal to safety can be a fun and quick fix. But the longterm solution to reducing road mortality is in the data collection on the app. By identifying new turtle hotspots and crossings, conservation groups can learn where to put fences to block roads and build turtle tunnels underneath for safe passage.
Yahoo
01-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Rejected by his mother, a rare wild Asian horse foal finds a new mom
A rare wild Asian horse foal named Marat is thriving at the Minnesota Zoo thanks to a domestic mare. (AP video: Mark Vancleave)
Washington Post
30-06-2025
- Health
- Washington Post
Rejected by his mother, a rare wild Asian horse foal finds a new mom in a grieving domestic mare
APPLE VALLEY, Minn. — An endangered wild Asian horse foal is thriving thanks to an unlikely hero. Marat, a Przewalski's horse, fell critically ill soon after his birth at the Minnesota Zoo nearly two months ago. He survived thanks to intensive care. But his mother rejected him when he returned.
CTV News
30-06-2025
- Health
- CTV News
Rejected by his mother, a rare wild Asian horse foal finds a new mom in a grieving domestic mare
Marat, a Przewalski's horse foal, rests with his adoptive mother Alice, a Pony of the Americas, at the Minnesota Zoo on June 26, 2025 in Apple Valley, Minn. (AP Photo/Mark Vancleave) APPLE VALLEY, Minn. — An endangered wild Asian horse foal is thriving thanks to an unlikely hero. Marat, a Przewalski's horse, fell critically ill soon after his birth at the Minnesota Zoo nearly two months ago. He survived thanks to intensive care. But his mother rejected him when he returned. His future looked grim until Alice, a domestic Pony of the Americas who'd recently lost her newborn, accepted him as her own. Veterinarians say this is one of the first times this kind of surrogacy has been tried with Asian wild horses, and his caregivers couldn't be happier. Zoo staffers picked the name Marat because it means 'one who is brave,' and he's had to be brave from such a young age Przewalski's are considered the only remaining truly wild horse species. They were declared extinct in the wild in the 1960s, with just a few surviving in zoos. But they've since been reestablished on the steppes of Mongolia and China, with some in Russia and Ukraine. Since fewer than 2,000 exist today, each foal is critical to the species' survival. 'Being one of the true wild horses left in the world, behaviorally, they are a little bit different,' said Kurt Heinzmann, the zoo's director of animal care. They've never been truly domesticated, and they're shorter and stockier than familiar breeds, he said. Marat was born with some limb problems that made it hard for him to stand up straight, said Dr. Annie Rivas, the zoo's director of animal health. 'And because he was struggling to keep up with Mom in the herd, he was spending a lot of time lying down on the ground and unfortunately developed bacterial sepsis. So he was very, very sick,' Rivas said. The University of Minnesota's equine intensive care unit nursed him back from his pneumonia and wounds. But it wasn't unusual that his first-time mom, Nady, would refuse to take him back. 'That left us with, 'What are we going to do with this foal?'' Rivas said. 'We could hand-rear him, but we're not going to be the ones who are the best at teaching them how to be a horse — especially a wild horse.' Fortunately, they found Alice, a gentle mare who was still grieving her own foal but immediately started nurturing Marat and allowing him to nurse. 'It was really kind of a perfect fairy-tale ending. ... They just bonded like that,' Rivas said. Integrating Marat into the complex social hierarchies of a wild herd will be the next challenge, she said, but Alice is helping Marat learn how to behave with other horses. They'll probably stay together for a few more months. They want him to join the zoo's adult Przewalski's herd before he's too old. 'He is definitely a wild horse,' Rivas said. 'One, he is a stallion, so he's already got a big personality from that. But he is also a little more wild than you would expect a domestic horse foal to be at this point in his life. And he is trying to show me that he's the boss, he's in charge, he's dominant. So he's trying to step up, kick, assert his dominance over me.' Mark Vancleave And Steve Karnowski, The Associated Press Karnowski reported from Minneapolis.
