Anton, a 25-year-old polar bear in Germany, is dead, sadly, after that were carelessly dropped into his enclosure at the Wihelma Zoo in Stuttgart. He could have lived another 15 years.
The bear was reportedly acting ill for several days before he began regurgitating pieces of the coat. After realizing what was wrong, zookeepers administered a drug to induce vomiting, but it was too late. Anton passed away.
According to zookeeper Andreas Woessner, animals do not normally eat objects dropped into their habitats. “Usually he just ripped up things that fell into his enclosure,” . “I don’t know why he decided to eat this object and can only assume there must have been something very tasty in there.”
Unfortunately, this is not the first such incident at the Wihelma Zoo. A hippopotamus named Egon died after swallowing a tennis ball, and Charly, an elephant seal, died after ingesting a teddy bear.