The Oklahoma City Zoo and Botanical Garden announced Thursday morning Malee, its four-year-old female Asian elephant, died overnight.
Zoo officials said in a statement they'd noticed Malee moving more slowly than usual Wednesday afternoon. But she was still eating normally. Around 4:30 p.m. they noticed discoloring in her mouth, so they initiated treatment EEHV, a form of elephant herpes.
A second treatment was given at 1 a.m., and despite efforts of zoo staff, she died around 4 a.m. The zoo said they haven't confirmed the elephant endotheliotropic herpes virus was the cause of death, and plan to perform a necropsy to figure out exactly what happened.
The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is calling on the Oklahoma City Zoo to end its elephant breeding program after Malee's death.
“It appears that this elephant died after contracting the herpes virus, which is very deadly, obviously, in this case, if that’s what did it,” PETA spokesman David Perle told KGOU in a voicemail. “And also, we point out, it’s almost exclusive to captive elephants.”
Johns Hopkins University medical professor Gary Hayward wrote in a 2012 article for the medical journal Veterinary Record some types of the virus kill between 80 to 90 percent of Asian elephants who contract it. It's most common in calves between the ages of one and four.
All of the other Oklahoma City Zoo elephants appear to be fine. Malee was the first elephant born at the zoo, and has been a popular attraction since 2011.
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