When an animal dies at a zoo, what do they do with the body?

Responsible zoos have the policy of doing a necropsy (autopsy) on every single animal that dies on site.
This includes a general health assessment as well as identificiation of the cause of death. Not only is there a physical examination, but samples of blood and tissues are sent off for routine testing, as well as testing that may be associated with the cause of death.

Where possible, the necropsy is also used as a teaching tool - vets and vet students will use this opportunity to learn more about that type of animal. For many exotic animals in zoos there may be limited information about their physiology.

For many species, especially those who are endangered, there may also be a collection of sperm or eggs from the animal, for storage or study. This can be done even after the animal has died, in the process of "gamete rescue". Quite a few North American zoos now have this capability, and if they don't they are able to courier the testes/ovaries to a facility that can perform the rescue.
DNA samples (usually hair or a small section of skin) are often taken from the animal as well, to be used in research or frozen away for possible future needs.

Finally, the animal will be disposed of as appropriate for the species. Generally cremation would happen, but some animals would have their skeletons or hides preserved, or in some rare cases they might even be stuffed - for teaching tool purposes. This would be done by the zoo or an associated museum or similar organisation. Extremely large species (like elephants) are usually buried somewhere on the zoo site, space permitting.

Animals Die with the Forest

INDONESIA'S tropical rainforests are disappearing 30 per cent faster than previously estimated as illegal loggers raid large national parks, threatening the long-term survival of orang utans, according to a United Nations report released on Monday.

The Indonesian authorities recently intercepted shipments totalling 70,000 cu m - about 3,000 truckloads - of illegal timber and arrested several people, but loggers were clearing an estimated 2.1 million ha of forest a year for timber worth US$4 billion (S$6 billion), said the report by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).

Only about 7,000 Sumatran orang utans and about 50,000 Borneo orang utans now exist in the wild.

'The populations are crashing dramatically,' said Ms Melanie Virtue of UNEP's Great Apes Survival Project, which carried out the study.

The number of Sumatran orang utans has fallen 91 per cent in the last century, based on studies of the number of apes in today's dense forests, said Mr Ian Redmond, also of the Great Apes Survival Project.

It is not known how much the population of the Borneo orang utans has declined.
Orang utans fleeing overlogged areas have ended up in 'refugee camps' run by the UNEP project.

Indonesian rescue centres now have about 1,000 orang utans, and the illegal trade in young orang utans for private zoos and safari parks has increased to 'significant numbers', the report said, without specifying further.

Earlier forecasts have said Indonesia's natural rainforest would be seriously degraded by 2032.
But projections based on new satellite surveillance suggest that 98 per cent of lowland forest will be destroyed by 2022, and many protected areas will be gone within the next five years, said the report, called 'The Last Stand of the Orang Utan'.

Orang utans breed only once in seven years, meaning their numbers struggle to recover even without the loss of their habitat.

But the report said orang utans have shown they can survive selective logging. Evidence from Ketgambe and Gunung Leuser in Sumatra showed their numbers declined after large trees were extracted from the forest, but rebounded as the forest regenerated.

The report was released at the triennial meeting of the 171-nation Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites).

The 1975 Cites treaty prohibits all trade in orang utans except by special permit.

The report said illegal loggers were operating in 37 out of 41 Indonesian national parks. Further pressure came from plantation owners clearing forests for palm oil trees to meet the demand for biofuels.

The report estimates that up to 88 per cent of all Indonesian timber is logged illegally and usually shipped abroad after being processed into lumber in saw mills or used as pulp.

First Released Panda Died in Wild

A five-year-old panda - who last year became the first to be released into the wild after being bred in captivity - has died, state media and Chinese nature reserve officials said yesterday.

The body of Xiang Xiang was found Feb. 19 on snow-covered ground in the forests of Sichuan province in China's southwest, the Xinhua News Agency said. He survived less than a year in the wild after nearly three years of training in survival techniques and defence tactics.

"Xiang Xiang died of serious internal injuries in the left side of his chest and stomach by falling from a high place," said Heng Yi, an official from the Wolong Giant Panda Research Centre in Sichuan. "The scratches and other minor injuries caused by other wild pandas were found on his body.

So Xiang Xiang may have fallen from trees when being chased by those pandas."Heng said the long delay in announcing Xiang Xiang's death was attributed to the need for a full investigation."We are all sad about Xiang Xiang, but it doesn't mean the project has failed," Zhang Hemin, the centre's head, was quoted as saying by Xinhua. "The lessons we have learned from what happened to Xiang Xiang will help us adapt and improve the project."

The nearly 80-kilogram male panda was released from Wolong in April 2006 and had been trained almost three years to survive in the wild. Xiang Xiang, whose name means auspicious, learned how to build a den, forage for food and mark his territory, experts at Wolong have said. He also developed defensive skills like howling and biting.

Li Desheng, deputy director of the Wolong centre, said Xiang Xiang's case proves that wild-panda communities are reluctant to accept male outsiders."We chose Xiang Xiang because we thought that a strong male panda would have a better chance of surviving in the harsh natural environment," Li was quoted as saying. "But the other male pandas clearly saw Xiang Xiang as a threat.

Next time we will choose a female panda."State media last year said that Xiang Xiang hesitated for a second when the door of his cage was opened, then scampered off into a nearby bamboo forest where he was tracked by a global positioning device attached to his collar.

He has been buried at the foot of a mountain, about 13 kilometres from the Wolong centre, Li said.

A splashing season at the Singapore Zoo