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Tragedy: Melvin the giraffe was attacked by an antelope walking in the same enclosure at Kristiansand Zoo in southern Norway
Around 30 people witnessed the unprovoked attack at Dyreparken Kristiansand on Monday.
Melvin
was a firm favourite among young visitors, having been named in a
readers' competition in a national newspaper when he was born at the zoo
in 2010.
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Deadly attack: The large eland
antelope gored five-year-old Melvin to death in an unprovoked attack
after giraffe had gotten his head stuck in the enclosure's fence
Dozens of children witnessed a giraffe being gored to death by an antelope at a Norwegian zoo on Easter Monday.
Melvin
the giraffe had got his head stuck in a fence when he was attacked by
an eland antelope walking in the same enclosure at Kristiansand zoo,
around 200 miles south of Oslo.
Zoo vets rushed to the scene, but were unable to save the five-year-old giraffe, who died in front of shocked families.
Witness
Øivind Hansen, who was visiting the zoo with his family and photographed
the event said even his 23-year-old daughter had come home crying after
the incident.
'It was very traumatic. People were crying everywhere,' he told Verdens Gang.
Melvin
had gotten his horns stuck in the enclosure's fence when suddenly the
eland, the second largest antelope in the world, suddenly attacked.
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Horrible scenes: Around 30 people,
many of them children, witnessed Melvin, who was born at the zoo in 2010
and named in a local newspaper competition, die in the enclosure
'He
was panicking and tugged and tore to free himself, and then came a
rather large animal with sharp horns and ran right into him,' Mr Hansen
adds.
'It is incredibly sad,' Dyreparken's chief executive told Dagbladet.no.
'He was alive when our veterinarian came to the scene, but died while he tried to save him.'
'Melvin
was gored right near his lungs and heart, and the injuries were so
serious that they killed him,' veterinarian Rolf Arne Ølberg, who was
called to the scene, said.
Mr
Ølberg added that the two animals have been walking in the same
enclosure since Melvin's birth in 2010 and has no idea why the antelope
launched the deadly attack on the young giraffe.
SOURCE: DAILYMAIL
