So Sad - 33 Reptiles Die Overnight at Zoo

[DLena]

The loss is irreplaceable. I so hope it was failing infrastructure and not a hate crime.

[zina10]

To kill them overnight due to electric failure, that would have to be heat, right ?

Cold doesn't kill them overnight. Esp. since a building wouldn't dip down to freezing that fast. Not to mention, they would have noticed that as soon as stepping in. They probably keep a certain "ambient" temperature on top of controlling the enclosures temps.

So if there was a electrical failure, could it have been overheating? But in that case, would all enclosures be run by the same thermostat to be failing on "high" and over heating? That seems wrong. And what could make ALL thermostats fail at the same time, in the wide open (heating) setting?

And gases?? What kind of gases could enter that old building that would kill all the snakes? Carbon Monoxide perhaps? But wouldn't they be able to establish that fairly quickly as well ??

I know the keepers have got to be devastated.

[DLena]

That makes a lot of sense, Zina. Maybe food contamination? This needs to be addressed publicly. It's not some little thing to be buried in the news.

[Slither Seeker]

animal rights folks don't usually kill the thing they wish to see free, so I don't think that's it, besides, to efficiently kill that many reptiles that quickly without leaving any traces would be very difficult. I would suspect an airborn toxin, like maybe a new cleaning agent with something really toxic to reptiles in it was used by the janitor on the floors overnight, something fairly volatile and readily available at stores. is there a cleaning agent that toxic to reptiles that is used to clean floors? maybe a pesticide was sprayed to control flees in mamal exhibits but was accidently applied to the reptile area? anyway, super sad and rather devastating to conservation efforts, hope they figure it out quick and share with us what they find so we can all learn from the tragedy and apply the knowledge to best practices!

[zina10]

It was probably not animal right people, but you would be surprised how whacko some of those people are. Some of them actually care very little about saving the animals, and they care more about punishing the owners that dare to keep pets as "pets". Being scared of snakes, they probably would not want to set them "free" as to release them, but they would want to cause damage to the keepers and zoos, for daring to keep those animals in cages..

For a cleaner to have killed the reptiles, it would have had to been something so strong, I'm not sure how a person could safely use it without wearing a mask. But then you never know...

With it being a old building and in need of repair/replacement, perhaps some work was done on it? Certain sealers and glues can be pretty toxic.

The thing is, any of those problems should have been figured out pretty quickly. If anything was so toxic that it killed the snakes, traces of the smell should still have been in the air. Unless its a odorless gas.

Mite treatment gone wrong? A "bug bomb" set off ?

Again, wouldn't they keep some records?

I do hope they figure it out and share their findings, however difficult that may be. It should help other zoos and reptile keepers to avoid the same problem.

[Sallos]

http://www.wfmynews2.com/news/33-rep...ille/425621849 Looks like their news is reporting that it was likely an issue with one of the building systems, and they treated the surviving animals with oxygen.I'm guessing they already know the "what" but are investigating the "how" before releasing that info.

[WastelandExotics]

Updated article with a little more info as far as what they have ruled out; this just gets stranger and stranger!

http://www.knoxnews.com/story/news/l...aths/99682162/

[zina10]

Holy Cow !!!

That is getting weirder and weirder !!!

"we may never know" would not work for me. Something so intense, deadly and swift has GOT to have a definite cause. Not finding it would drive me crazy..

[sneksNferts]

Tested negative for carbon monoxide, but I assume when they do that, they're testing the air? If something happened shortly after they left for the night, could it not have seeped out by the time they were discovered the next day and were able to get someone over there to test?

[JodanOrNoDan]

My bet is on a chemical aerosol. Most likely a cleaning agent.