by Adeniyi Abdul
Tragedy struck at a Prague Zoo when a gorilla accidentally committed suicide this morning.
5-year-old Tatu had been playing with a climbing rope in the gorilla wing when he ended up hanging himself by mistake. Zookeepers believe Tatu unbraided one of the dozens of ropes the gorillas use in their pavilion for climbing and put a strand around his neck before tragically hanging himself.
“It was an accident,” said mammals curator Pavel Brandl. ” The ropes are checked daily”.
Another gorilla, Kamba, was found by Tatu’s side and was apparently trying to help the animal but Pavel said, “It’s hard to say what exactly she was doing.”
“This is the most tragic event that has happened at the Prague zoo since a flood damaged a large section in August 2002,” director Miroslav Bobek said in a statement. “It’s mainly the female Kamba, the oldest member of the herd, who stubbornly refused to quit Tatu.”
Tatu was the emblematic animal of Prague Zoo, since 2007 when he was born.
The Prague Zoo was opened in the in the district of Troja in the north of the Czech Republic in 1931 with the goal to ‘advance the study of zoology, protect wildlife, and educate the public’.
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