An orangutan at the Toledo Zoo that fought a pneumonia-like lung infection for more than four years died Wednesday while recovering from surgery.
The great ape, named Rusty, was a 31-year-old female.
Zoo officials announced the death yesterday afternoon, saying it occurred 26 hours after surgeons removed the orangutan's infected right lung. A necropsy - the animal equivalent of an autopsy - showed Rusty died of heart failure and endotoxic shock related to the infection, Dr. Tim Reichard, senior zoo veterinarian, said.
Rusty was an endangered Bornean orangutan, a species from Indonesia with a life expectancy of about 35 years in captivity and about 40 in the wild, said Dr. Randi Meyerson, the zoo's curator of primates and small mammals.
The ape was born in the Buffalo Zoo in January, 1970. She was brought to the Toledo Zoo in June, 1997, from the Topeka Zoo.
Local zoo officials hoped she would breed with one of the Toledo Zoo's male orangutans - but she had the lung infection when she arrived and never succeeded in producing offspring here, Dr. Meyerson said.
Rusty received two forms of antibiotics daily from the zoo staff since coming here, oral medication and that which was administered by an inhaler-type device. But she couldn't shake the infection.
“It was deep-seated. It was getting worse,” Dr. Meyerson said.
She said the decision was made to remove the lung because the ape's prognosis was bleak. Rusty was in pain as a result of pus in her infected area.
Officials feared that the infection eventually would spread to her healthy lung.
“We all agreed we had no other choice. The staff is very sad, but we also feel we did everything we could,” Dr. Meyerson said.
She said employees form close bonds with many zoo animals but that Rusty was special because of all the attention she received from her daily regimen of antibiotics.
Rusty was one of the zoo's six orangutans. Those remaining include two males, J.J. and Boomer, and three females, M.J., Nana, and Kutai.
First Published June 15, 2001, 2:33 p.m.
