Tusker, a 6,610 kg bull elephant, had been loaned to Basel from the Netherlands in spring 2021.
Zoo Basel
A bull elephant known as Tusker was euthanised on Wednesday at Basel Zoo after a battle with tuberculosis. The elephant had become a social media star.
Veterinarians at Basel Zoo were forced to put the animal to sleep on Wednesday morning because of tuberculosis, officials told reporters.
Tusker, a 6,610 kg bull elephant, had been loaned to Basel from the Netherlands in spring 2021 in the hope that he would provide an offspring to Basel Zoo’s three females.
On Monday the suspicion of severe tuberculosis was confirmed, said veterinarian Fabia Wyss. The elephant had been inactive for a long time, but the disease has not been clearly diagnosed.
Her colleague, Christian Wenker, said tuberculosis is common in elephants in the wild too. She said transmission to humans could be ruled out, but it was uncertain about the three female elephants.
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Tusker was set to move to Spain due to his reputation as “the best breeding bull elephant in Europe”, said Fabian Schmid of Basel Zoo. The elephant had become a Tiktok and YouTube star after visitors filmed him balancing tree trunks and the clips went viral last year.
Schmid described the bull elephant as an extraordinary animal: “a very big elephant personality” that all zoo employees had grown fond of.
Tusker was born in South Africa in 1992 and arrived at Wuppertal Zoo in Germany in 1995, where he became one of the most successful breeding bulls in Europe. There he fathered thirteen offspring with four mothers. In 2019, Tusker moved to Ouwehands Dierenpark Rhenen in the Netherlands and then on to Basel Zoo in April 2021.
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