From Lake Superior Zoo: We are very sad to announce that one of our wolves has died. “Cohen,” who was on loan, along with his brothers “Capone” and “Dillinger” from the Wildlife Science Center in Columbus, MN was euthanized after emergency exploratory surgery on Tuesday, June 18.

The zoo’s keeper staff had observed Cohen become increasingly lethargic over several days. On Tuesday Cohen was brought to the zoo’s Animal Care Center for evaluation. It was decided that emergency exploratory surgery would be the best and most appropriate course of action.

According to the zoo’s veterinarian Dr. Louise Beyea, Cohen had a serious and deadly infection in his abdominal cavity that was the result of a ruptured abscess. To complicate matters worse, the abscess was also adhered to the main blood supply to the entire digestive tract, which upon removal, would result in the loss of blood supply to 75% of the small intestine and 30% of the large intestine.

Dr. Beyea said “this was one of the worst abdominal cases I’ve operated on in 25 years.” She added “as you know, the problem with wildlife is that they don’t show symptoms of illness until they are extremely ill. Even in pet dogs that show signs of illness right away, these are very challenging cases.”

Maicie Sykes, the zoo’s Lead Keeper worked with Cohen and said “Cohen was a wonderful animal when it came to interacting with public.”