Jaguar attack at Audubon Zoo on Sunday claims ninth victim, a red fox named Rusty

The death toll for animals injured in the jaguar attack at Audubon Zoo rose to nine with the passing of “Rusty” the fox, according to a news release from Audubon Zoo.

Rusty’s condition became critical Sunday evening after being attacked by the zoo’s escaped male jaguar on Saturday. He died Monday morning “despite best efforts,” according to the news release.

The most recently deceased joins the attack’s two other vulpine victims, one of whom died Saturday and the other Sunday. The nine animals killed include all five of the zoo’s alpacas, three foxes and one emu, with one of the alpacas dying Sunday from its wounds.

“The outpouring of community support is helping our staff through this devastating time, especially those who care for our animals,” zoo spokesperson Katie Smith said in the news release.

No people were injured.

The zoo reopened Sunday after being closed to the public Saturday because of the attacks, but the jaguar exhibit remained closed.

A spokeswoman for the zoo said the jaguar will soon return to his enclosure and will “100 percent not be euthanized.”

The zoo’s general curator, Joel Hamilton, said Saturday that Valerio “was just doing what jaguars do.”

A zoo employee discovered the escape about 7:20 a.m. Saturday, before the zoo was open to the public, according to a zoo statement. The employee sounded the alarm and locked himself in a building while a response team located the jaguar and shot it with a tranquilizer dart.

An ongoing investigation showed “the roof of the (jaguar) habitat was compromised,” allowing Valerio to escape, the Audubon statement said. The zoo said zookeeper error is not suspected.

“The safety of our guests and our staff and our animals is our No. 1 priority, and we take this situation very seriously,” said Kyle Burks, vice president and managing director for the zoo. “We are working to investigate everything that happened so we can prevent anything like this from happening ever again.”

Zookeepers were not available to talk Sunday as many of them are still shocked by what happened, the spokeswoman said, and the zoo has brought in grief counselors to help them deal with the incident.

Ron Forman, CEO of the Audubon Nature Institute, during a news conference Saturday called the escape and attacks “the biggest tragedy we’ve had” at the zoo but reassured the public that they shouldn’t be concerned.

“The zoo, it’s been here for 100 years,” Forman said. “In that time period, we’ve had over 100 million visitors to the zoo. We’ve never had an incident like that before. So I think statistically, there’s nothing to worry about the safety of coming to the zoo.”

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