Polar bear in Canadian zoo died after rough play with fellow bear, necropsy finds

CALGARY, Alberta -- A necropsy has shown that a polar bear at a zoo in western Canada died by drowning after his throat was crushed by a fellow bear in rough play considered normal for the massive predators.

The 7-year-old Baffin died at the Calgary Zoo on Friday after roughhousing in a pond with another male bear, the 8-year-old Siku, while visitors to the exhibit watched. Baffin submerged in the pond and didn't resurface.

The 8-year-old bear apparently bit down on the 7-year-old's trachea and while the bite didn't pierce Baffin's skin, it was hard enough and in just the right place to crush his trachea, zoo senior veterinarian Sandie Black said.

“It’s typical of how they play,” Black said of the roughhousing, but added that it was a “tragically misplaced” bite.

At first, nobody knew anything was wrong.

“It was apparent that one of the bears didn’t surface,” said Colleen Baird, the zoo’s director of animal care. ”(Visitors) were like, ‘How long can a bear hold its breath?’”

Eventually, Siku was brought back into his enclosure, visitors ushered away and the pond drained to reveal Baffin’s body.

Siku and Baffin were both originally from the Churchill, Manitoba, area. Both had been orphaned when they were less than a year old -- a circumstance that bear cubs don’t normally survive.

The pair came to Calgary from the polar bear enclosure at the Assiniboine Park Zoo in Winnipeg. They were chosen because they had lived together for years and were considered to be compatible.