8/28/2013
By Ivan Pereira
The Central Park Zoo lost one of its oldest, and furriest members Wednesday.
Gus, the zoo’s polar bear who helped researchers on projects involving animal depression, had to be euthanized after it was discovered he had a tumor on his thyroid and had trouble eating. He was 27, almost seven years old than the life expectancy for polar bears.
“Gus was an icon at the Central Park Zoo and a great source of joy for our visitors and staff,” Jim Breheny, WCS executive vice president of Zoos and Aquarium,. said in a statement.
Born in the Toledo Zoo in 1985, Gus moved to New York three years later. In 1994, he was the center of a study that examined the behavior patterns of polar bears that leave their natural habitats.
“Polar bears are apex predators — the kings of their domain, but vulnerable in a world affected by climate change brought on by human activity,” Breheny said.
