The Buffalo Zoo announced two heartbreaking losses to their large animal family. 

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Every year, approximately 400,000 people visit the array of animals that call the Buffalo Zoo home. Frequent visitors get attached to their favorites, and some have spent years watching them grow up and thrive.

So when one of them travels on to that big animal kingdom in the sky, it can be a sad loss for our community. If Buffalonians are sad about the loss of their wild friends, imagine the devastation that the animal caretakers and zookeepers who work there are feeling after caring for them for years.

The Buffalo Zoo announced in a Facebook post that they have recently experienced not one but two losses that both visitors and their caretakers loved.

Kev

Facebook via Buffalo Zoo/Canva
Facebook via Buffalo Zoo/Canva
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Kev, a maned wolf, had been living at the Buffalo Zoo since he was just a few months old. According to the Zoo, Kev loved laying in his bed and relaxing in the shade throughout his older years.

Even though Kev was suffering from several health issues, along with the fact that the median life expectancy of a maned wolf is twelve years old, Kev impressively lived to the age of fifteen.

Vladimir

Facebook via Buffalo Zoo/Canva
Facebook via Buffalo Zoo/Canva
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The other member of the Buffalo Zoo family that passed away was a Eurasian black vulture named Vladimir, who had been living there since 1991. 

Vladimir and his mate, Czari, raised fifteen offspring together and even fostered an egg from an exchange program with a zoo in Detroit, earning him the cute nickname “Vlad the dad.”

The Zoo says Vlad loved taking baths and beef ribs (like so many of us), and lived to the age of thirty-two.

RIP, our furry and feathered friends. Our hearts go out to those who loved to visit you and the caretakers who shared them with us.

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