Poor things

Some zoo animals drown, people flee flooding in northeast Minnesota

Jeb, the black and brown dwarfed goat at Lake Superior Zoo, sought out Brad Jago every day for a little love, attention and a gentle scratch on the forehead where his horns once stood.

On Wednesday it was Jago seeking Jeb, as the groundskeeper and the rest of the zoo staff scrambled to find and recapture animals that escaped during torrential overnight flooding that forced the evacuation of some homes in a low-lying neighborhood in the port city of Duluth.

Zoo workers safely recovered two seals and a polar bear that had managed to escape their enclosures but Jeb and a dozen or so other animals from the zoo’s barnyard exhibit — including other goats, sheep and a miniature donkey — drowned.

10 inches of rain, and a near miss when a boy was swept into a culvert, but miraculously was rescued, so no major injuries or deaths among people. But it is sad that the animals died. Most were of the barnyard exhibit, although another report I read said there were exhibits underwater so more may have drowned. The seals were particularly resourceful. One was found in a street some distance from the zoo. :)