Masamba and ungulate senior keeper Josh de Waard. Photo / Tom Eley
The Hamilton Zoo has been forced to put down three of its beloved residents in the space of a week.
One of them was Masamba the giraffe, who was earlier reported to be in hospice care during his final days.
Masamba was the last surviving giraffe of the oldest herd at Hamilton Zoo.
He recently celebrated his 23rd birthday.
The zoo’s director, Baird Johnson, told the Waikato Herald he lived a “long life”.
Male giraffes are only expected to live about 20 years, but Masamba surpassed that.
When Johnson first started at the zoo five years ago, he remembers Masamaba was almost on the verge of being euthanised.
“His feet were so bad,” he said.
Zookeepers and vet specialists invested years of care, effort and money trying to properly get him back on his feet, which gave him five more years of “comfortable living”.
It got to a point that they needed to think about further treatment, which included narcotics, but it would ultimately reduce his quality of life.
“He wouldn’t be all there.”
He would have good days and bad days, but when bad days became more frequent, it reached an unacceptable level, Johnson said.
With Masamba’s health declining, he was in hospice care and being loved and cared for, but “no amount of love and care could have changed the inevitable outcome“.
Zookeepers then “acted on the heartbreaking but humane decision” to euthanise him.
Masamba, “an incredible soul”, was surrounded by his care team until the end.
His keepers, Johnson said, were like parents to him, doing everything possible to ensure he was happy, safe and healthy.
“When it’s something you can’t fix, it’s incredibly frustrating and incredibly painful.
“When you have to euthanise that animal, it’s heartbreaking because you can see those keepers just crumble,” he said.
“They put everything into taking care of these animals. When they can’t do anything, they feel helpless, they feel like they’re losing one of their family.
“It just destroys and crushes them.”
Citing declining health concerns, the zoo also euthanised Chica the agouti, and Barry the nyala.
Over the past year, Chica faced ongoing challenges from a persistent jaw infection.
Despite massive efforts from the team, including dental specialists, MRIs and surgeries, she did not heal.
Baird said Chica wasn’t a “young lady”, but agoutis are rodents and their teeth are “extremely important” to them.
With an infection, she was constantly on the decline, and vets “just could not get on top of it”.
During encounters, Chica was gentle, curious and always eager to greet visitors, and zookeepers thanked everyone who was able to share a moment with her.
“Our keepers are deeply saddened – Chica was truly a treasure here at the zoo,” a social media post read.
Barry, with the “impressive spiral horns”, injured his front foot in 2024.
Baird said specialists would fix it, but ultimately, they “couldn’t fix the bone” and later, Barry ended up injuring both his front feet.
Despite treatment and the best efforts of the team, it didn’t heal, “continuously” causing him problems and making it hard for him to move.
On social media, a post from the zoo read: “After a lot of deliberation, we made the very difficult decision that the kindest option for Barry was euthanasia.
“Animal wellbeing is always our top priority and we will miss Barry greatly.”
Baird said it’s been a hard week at the zoo, but keepers are feeling as if “we did the right thing”.
“How wonderful that we were able to care for them for a long time and when we couldn’t care for them anymore, we were able to let them go in as painfree a manner as possible.”
Meanwhile, the Auckland Zoo also farewelled 20-year-old, Ōrua this week, a geriatric fur seal who was rescued and given a second lease on life at the Western Springs park almost two decades ago.
The organisation cited a deteriorating, quarter-century-old habitat that could no longer be maintained to a standard that fitted Ōrua’s health and welfare needs as being behind the call.
There are no longer any seals or sealions in New Zealand zoos or aquariums.
Malisha Kumar is a multimedia journalist based in Hamilton. She joined the Waikato Herald in 2023 after working for Radio 1XX in Whakatāne.