UPDATE:
Noni the black bear, known by her Sequoia Park Zoo caretakers as “twinkle toes” for her habit of perching on the thinnest branches at the top of the redwood trees in her enclosure, has died. She was 2.
Read more about the zoo’s announcement here.
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Noni, one of two rescued black bears at the Sequoia Park Zoo, is recovering after undergoing emergency surgery Friday and visitors are being asked to pass by the enclosure quietly while she recuperates in its night house.
“This health issue was very serious, and we will keep our community updated about Noni’s recovery,” zoo officials said in a social media post. “She is not out of the woods, but she is a strong, resilient bear.”
According to the post, animal care staff first noticed Noni exhibiting abnormal behavior during a routine morning check Oct. 3 and called in the zoo’s veterinarian Jennifer Tavares but after “diagnostics and symptomatic care with no improvement,” the bear was taken to Broadway Animal Hospital.
“During the emergency surgery, Dr. Tavares discovered that a piece of connective tissue was compromising the health of the colon. This connective tissue was removed, but Noni’s colon had experienced substantial trauma,” the post states. “However, we are hopeful that her colon will be able to heal.”
Tule remains in the main enclosure, according to zoo staff, but “is tending to lounge near the bear night house” and “visitors might not see him up to his normal antics, but he is still climbing trees and playing in the pond.”
Noni and Tule are not litter mates but were raised together at a wildlife rescue center after being found orphaned as cubs.
Tule was just a few weeks old, weighing a mere 3.7 pounds, when he was found in April of 2022 on Tule River Nation Reservation in Tulare County and was transferred to the Lake Tahoe Wildlife Center after a several-days-long attempt to find and reunite the cub with his mother was unsuccessful.
A month later, Noni — a little larger at 6.5 pounds — was also discovered as an orphan in the Oak Run area of Shasta County, about 20 miles east of Redding, and joined Tule at the rescue facility, where they would spend the next year together being nursed back to health.
Unfortunately, officials with the California Department Fish and Wildlife deemed both of the cubs unsuitable for release back into the wild and they were brought to the Sequoia Park Zoo in May of 2023.
“There is no timeline for recovery, but we should know more about her colon function as the days and weeks progress,” the zoo states. “At this point, her prognosis is yet unknown, but we remain cautiously optimistic about her recovery.”
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This article appears in ‘The Shit Show’.
