Yahoo Finance ‘It’s hard losing family’: Virginia the bear dies after 15-plus years at NC museum
An orphaned 15-pound bear cub arrived at the Museum of Life & Science in Durham almost 16 years ago — rescued from a yard in Virginia.
In the years since the bear arrived in June 2005, Virginia, as she was named, became a beloved fixture at the museum, bringing joy to the hundreds of thousands of visitors who watched her retrieve watermelons or swim in a pool on a summer day.
When she died Monday morning, it felt like losing a family member, the museum staff said in announcing the black bear’s death. She was humanely euthanized after weeks of deteriorating health, the museum said.
“I literally bottle-fed this bear and watched her grow up at the Museum. She’s family,” Sherry Samuels, the museum’s director of animal care, wrote in a blog post on the museum’s website. “It’s hard losing family, even if it’s the right decision.”
With a shaggy coat of fur and a distinctive white “v” on her chest, Virginia was an easily identifiable figure among the museum’s three other bears, Samuels said in a tribute.
By adulthood, Virginia weighed over 300 pounds and would often be found napping in the sun in the museum’s bear habitat.
“This seemed to be her home away from home, making a nest, her bed, in specific spaces,” Samuels wrote. “If we could not find her in the vicinity of the other bears, we’d radio “Did you check her bed?”
In the summer, Virginia entertained museum-goers by cracking open watermelons after retrieving them from the pool.
A November exam at the N.C. State University Veterinary Hospital found she had “extensive orthopedic issues.” Despite medicine, supplements and other treatments, Virginia’s health continued to decline and she struggled to move on her own, Samuels wrote on her Animal Keeper blog.
Recent weeks had seen her health deteriorate, until the museum “determined that it could do nothing more to improve her health and quality of life,” the museum said on Facebook.
Three bears remain at the museum: Mimi, Gus and Yona.
“If the amount of tears, smiles, and stories are any indication of how well lived a life is, Virginia surely led a good one,” Samuels wrote in her tribute. “I for one am better for having had time with her.”
The museum recently mourned the death of Chip, a female yellowbelly slider turtle, who was a fixture on the museum grounds, The News & Observer reported.
We are heartbroken to announce the death of our beloved black bear, Virginia. Virginia lived with osteoarthritis and...
Posted by Museum of Life and Science on Tuesday, April 13, 2021
