SEATTLE - A goat-like animal, known as a goral (go-RAHL), was euthanized Monday at Woodland Park Zoo due to the animal’s advanced state of skin cancer. A surgical consultant who was at the zoo Monday for a planned procedure to remove multiple skin lesions determined the tumors were too extensive and not favorable to surgery. The male goral was ---9 years old. The life span of gorals is approximately 15 years.

Consulting surgeon Dr. Ken Sinibaldi, a veterinary surgeon with Animal Surgical Clinic (Seattle), and Dr. Darin Collins, the zoo’s director of Animal Health, concurred that a post-surgical period would have been too intensive. “The animal’s long-term prognosis was poor,” explained Collins. “We opted to humanely euthanize the animal rather than proceed with treatment and subject it to further discomfort.”

There are five subspecies of the Chinese gray goral, which inhabits areas of eastern-central China. Woodland Park Zoo has the central Chinese subspecies. Chinese gray gorals are an endangered species with fewer than 2,000 remaining in the wild. Overhunting, poaching and fragmented habitat are primary threats to the species.

Woodland Park Zoo opens daily at 9:30 a.m. and closes 5:00 p.m. during the fall. For information about gorals and the zoo, visit the zoo’s Web site at www.zoo.org.

Accredited by the American Zoo and Aquarium Association, top award-winning Woodland ParkZoo is famed for pioneering naturalistic exhibits and setting a standard for zoos all over the world. With conservation, education and excellent animal care at the core of the zoo’s mission, the zoo is helping to save endangered species in Washington state and around the world including tree kangaroos, snow leopards, red-crowned cranes, African wild dogs, western pond turtles and Oregon silverspot butterflies. By inspiring visitors and others to care and act, Woodland Park Zoo is making a difference in our planet’s future.