Toronto Zoo says red panda cub that died unexpectedly was not among animals given COVID-19 vaccine
Toronto Zoo says red panda cub that died unexpectedly was not among animals given COVID-19 vaccine
(Reuters) - Users claimed that a red panda in the Toronto Zoo died after it was inoculated with a COVID-19 vaccine, but a spokesperson for the zoo told Reuters that the panda had never received a COVID-19 vaccine.
On Oct. 24, Toronto Zoo posted on social media that the three-month-old cub called Dash died unexpectedly, after staff found him in a weak state, lying on his side the day prior (here).
Users online then claimed or implied that the cub died as a result of a COVID-19 vaccination (here), (here), (here),
(here) and (here).
A spokesperson for the zoo, Amy Naylor, told Reuters that the cub had not received a COVID-19 vaccine.
“I too have seen the people on Twitter posting our videos of our staff vaccinating our red pandas, but this was earlier in the year before Dash was even born in July. Only the adult red pandas received the Covid vaccine and are perfectly healthy,” Naylor said in an email.
The zoo tweeted in April that it had received COVID-19 vaccines for its animals, although this was months before the cub was born (here).
The zoo released a statement via its Twitter account on Oct. 25 confirming that the cub had not been vaccinated (here).
The cub’s cause of death is still under investigation, Naylor told Reuters. “A post-mortem was conducted to collect samples for additional testing which will be required to better understand the possible cause of the rapid decline of this animal. Until the results are available to us, we are unable to definitively state the cause of death.”
“Red pandas are a very complicated species and for several decades the zoo did not have success with breeding them,” the zoo stated in its Oct. 24 social media post (here).
The zoo did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether the cub’s mother was among the animals to receive the vaccine in April as suggested by some online users.
VERDICT
False. The cub had not been vaccinated before he died, a spokesperson for the zoo told Reuters. Adult pandas were inoculated earlier in 2022, before the cub was born.
