Devon the grizzly bear dies at Sedgwick County Zoo

In the summertime, Devon the grizzly bear liked to spend his time in the pool, splashing kids as they came up to observe.

When it was time for Zoobilee, he would get excited upon sniffing barbecue in the air.

And one of his major hobbies was pacing around his enclosure.

Devon, 23, died at the Sedgwick County Zoo on Thursday after weeks of illness, said Mark Reed, the zoo’s executive director.

“Until he just recently got sick, he had never had a medical problem the entire time he’s been here,” Reed said. “We won’t know the total cause of his illness until we get the pathology report back, but he has some major issues … the quality of life was just not there anymore, and it was time to euthanize him.”

Devon and the zoo’s other grizzly, Mallory, were two of the original animals in the North American Prairie exhibit when it opened on Memorial Day 1993.

The zoo obtained them from Washington State University, Reed said. The school had just completed a research program involving grizzly bears and was looking for a home for the two.

“When he got here, he was about the size of a Saint Bernard,” he said.

Reed said the bear was one of his “personal favorites” and was a staple at the zoo. Devon had no offspring with Mallory, having been vasectomized, but Reed said the bear “had an active sex life still.”

Since the 1980s, zoos have been receiving grizzly and black bears whenever bears needed a home – say, if someone was keeping a black bear chained to a car bumper in a Tennessee trailer park, as was the case with another of the zoo’s bears.

Devon was “a little over middle-aged,” Reed said, as most grizzly bears live into their early to mid-30s. He had been at the Sedgwick County Zoo for 21 years, Reed said.

Reed said the zoo will be looking for another grizzly bear to replace Devon.

“We’ll put out the word that we’re willing to house one and see what happens,” he said.

This story was originally published July 17, 2015 at 9:11 PM with the headline "Devon the grizzly bear dies at Sedgwick County Zoo."