Poisoner kills zoo's elephant

(REUTERS)

The only elephant in Kiev's zoo, 39-year-old Boy, died yesterday in his enclosure, apparently after being poisoned.

"This morning at 10.45am he let out a terrible cry and fell. I have the conclusions of veterinarians... It was a poisoning," the zoo's director, Svitlana Berzina, said.

Boy, an Asian elephant weighing 6.5 tonnes, arrived at Kiev zoo in the middle of the 1970s. "It was a tragic and sudden death," she said. "The animal was in stable condition." Ms Berzina said there had been an earlier attempt to poison Boy, in the 1990s. "On that occasion," she added, "we managed to save him".