Pride event animals’ deaths appear not to be caused by poison

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London police say the deaths of two animals from a petting zoo that were part of a recent Pride event in the city don’t appear to have been the result of intentional poisoning – the initial concern of the event’s organizers.

Six animals from Little Hobby Hill Farm, a petting zoo in Salford, were part of Oakridge Pride, a volunteer-run LGBTQ event at Oakridge Optimist Park on Saturday. Two of them have since died, and another fell ill, leading to allegations from an organizer that they were poisoned.

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“While we can confirm two animals have died, at this time the cause of death does not appear to be as a result of intentional poisoning and is still under investigation,” London police Sgt. Sandasha Bough said in a statement Tuesday afternoon.

“The initial misinformation appears to have been posted and shared via social media, and not from the owner of the involved animals.”

More information will be made public “should the investigation become criminal in nature,” Bough said.

In a Monday interview, petting zoo owner Bethany Tout said that of the six animals there, one was put down Saturday after having uncontrolled seizures, another Sunday, and a third had symptoms Monday.

The animals were sent to a postmortem lab at the Ontario Veterinary College at the University of Guelph, and Tout said a veterinarian told her the cause was possibly a rodenticide – rat poison – or a pesticide. One animal from the Ingersoll-area petting zoo was a Patagonian Cavy, a rabbit-like rodent native to Argentina, and another was guinea pig.

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“We’ve definitely felt the effects of losing animals and so traumatically,” Tout said Monday. “I’d just really hate to think that somebody would do this on purpose to animals. They’re so innocent, and they can’t fend for themselves.”

Organizers from Wortley Pride posted on Facebook on Monday that a “senseless act of hate was perpetrated” during the family event, which included live music and performers along with the petting zoo.

The post alleged rat poison was intentionally left in the grass. “These actions are vindictive and filled with hate. The individuals who perpetrated this hate crime . . . must be found and charged,” the post read.

bbaleeiro@postmedia.com

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