Gorilla loses appetite, lions develop cough due to COVID

PRAGUE: A gorilla and two lions have tested positive for COVID-19 at the Prague Zoo, which is closed amid lockdown restrictions in the country.

“Lions Jamvan and Suchi and male gorilla Richard tested positive today. Their symptoms have been mild so far. The lions have a cold and cough. Richard is tired and lost his appetite,” Director Miroslav Bobek said on his Facebook account.

The animals were mostly likely infected by staff and other animals will be tested, Bobek said. Prague Zoo was in touch with other zoos that have seen COVID-19 cases.

In January, a troop of gorillas at the San Diego Zoo’s Safari Park suffered from an outbreak of COVID-19 that sickened several of the group’s eight members.

The Czech Republic has faced a renewed surge in COVID-19 cases that has pushed its infection rate among the highest in the world on a per capita basis.

On the other hand, a zoo worker in Spain has died ater he was struck by an elephant’s trunk, knocking his head against the bars of an enclosure, the zoo and local officials said on Thursday.

The female elephant, which weighs around 4,000 kilos (8,800 pounds), whacked the 44-yearold with her trunk on Wednesday morning at the Cabarceno Natural Park near the northern city of Santander, the zoo said in a statement.

The man was rushed to hospital where he died from his injuries some three hours later, it added.

At the time staffers were cleaning the elephant stables as part of their daily duties and the elephant was with her calf in the compound.

“We’re talking about unpredictable animals,” Javier Lopez Marcano, the tourism minister in the regional government of Cantabria which owns the zoo, told reporters.

“The force of the strike was tremendous, of a magnitude that one could not survive,” he added.

Police and the zoo said they had opened an investigation. It is the first such incident in the park’s 31-year history.

Cabarceno Natural Park is home to almost 120 animal species including wolves, tigers, lions and jaguars which live in large enclosures where one or more species co-exist.