Two seals, including newborn, die at Hong Kong’s Ocean Park while red panda breaks into giant panda enclosure in trio of incidents
Management says it did not inform the public of the deaths and panda escape earlier because it was still ‘gathering information’
Two seals, including a newborn, have died at Ocean Park in two separate incidents in less than a week, a spokeswoman for the marine theme park confirmed last night.
A red panda also escaped its enclosure and entered a neighbouring enclosure, home to the park’s two resident giant pandas, Ying Ying and Le Le.
A newborn spotted seal died on Thursday shortly after it was born when its mother, Qiao Niu, accidentally knocked her baby into the water.
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A necropsy, the animal equivalent of an autopsy, revealed that the baby seal’s lungs did not have enough time to inflate before it was thrown into the water so it was unable to breathe and died.
The baby seal did not drown, the park said.
Suzanne Gendron, the park’s executive director of zoological operations and education, said security cameras showed that Qiao Niu was asleep when she started to give birth.
Gendron said the mother seal appeared startled when she woke up and unknowingly knocked her baby into the water.