A Death at Tyler’s Caldwell Zoo

TYLER – A female elephant at Tyler’s Caldwell Zoo has died. The zoo announced that Binti, a female African elephant, died Tuesday following a short illness. A necropsy will be performed to determine the cause of death. Binti was born in in South Africa in 1978 and arrived at the Tyler zoo by way of the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago in 2000. She was the zoo’s only tuskless elephant, which is a not-so-common trait. It is believed around 38% are born without tusks, much higher than the estimated 1% in the 1930s. According to National Geographic, the average female African elephant’s lifespan born in the wild is 56 years and 17 years in captivity.