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May 12, 2008 8:24 pm US/Central
Dallas Zoo Elephant Passes Away
DALLAS (CBS 11 / TXA 21) ―
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KeKe, an African elephant at the Dallas Zoo, passed away from a serious illness on May 12, 2008.
Dallas Zoo
KeKe, a 39-year-old elephant at the Dallas Zoo, died Monday from a serious illness.
Earlier Monday, Zoo officials said they were treating KeKe for "a severe case of intestinal colic."
The elephant had been sick for more than a week. KeKe, an African elephant, had a long history of colic, they say, but recently she stopped eating.
At about 4:20 Monday afternoon, zoo officials announced that KeKe had died. The 8,000-pound elephant came from the Caldwell Zoo in Tyler and had been in Dallas since 2003 to be a companion to another African elephant named Jenny. Zoo keeper say the two were very close.
The zoo says for the past ten days its staff tried to treat KeKe's colic with methods that have worked in the past.
This time, however, they were unsuccessful.
Diagnosing digestive problems in elephants is difficult, zoo officials say.
The animals' size makes it impossible to use sonograms and radiography as they can with other animals.
KeKe had been laying on her side for some time, which is bad for elephants over an extended period of time.
Monday afternoon zoo officials used a crane to lift KeKe to her feet.
Zoo officials closed the large mammal exhibit while KeKe is ill. There's no word on when it will reopen.
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