Woodland Park Zoo mourns the death of 14-year-old Shila, its last remaining gray wolf

PIERCE COUNTY, Wash. — The Woodland Park Zoo announced Friday that its sole 14-year-old gray wolf, Shila, has passed away.

The Woodland Park Zoo said animal keepers found Shila dead this morning in her habitat.

“At 14, Shila was a geriatric wolf; in human care, the median life expectancy for gray wolves is 11 to 12 years old,” wrote the Woodland Park Zoo. “As a standard procedure, the zoo’s animal health team will perform a postmortem exam to further diagnose factors that may have contributed to Shila’s death.”

According to the Woodland Park Zoo, Shila was born in April 2010 at the New York Zoo at Thompson Park and moved to the Woodland Park Zoo in the fall of that year along with her three sisters, who have all since passed away.

The Zoo said they made “groundbreaking medical headway” for wolves this past June when its veterinary team partnered with an external veterinary cardiologist to implant a pacemaker in Shila to treat a life-threatening cardiac arrhythmia.

“While pacemakers are common treatments for humans and domestic dogs, it is believed Shila’s pacemaker was among the first for her species,” wrote the Woodland Park Zoo.Shila’s heart condition carried the risk of sudden death, according to Dr. Tim Storms, director of animal health at Woodland Park Zoo.

“The only corrective option for Shila’s diagnosis was an artificial pacemaker,”said Storms. “She had an immediate return to normal behavior, and it was gratifying to see her acting like a much younger wolf during the last four months.”

The Woodland Park Zoo continued to note that gray wolves have been a mainstay at their location for seven decades.

“Our hearts are very heavy losing Shila, especially as she’s our last gray wolf at Woodland Park Zoo. She lived a long, very good, life thanks to the passion and dedication of our animal care staff,” said Erin Sullivan, an animal curator at Woodland Park Zoo. “We’re grateful to our veterinary team and the specialized team at Olympic Veterinary Cardiology, who not only helped us extend her life but added quality back to it. Watching Shila strut around her habitat with the bounce back in her steps was absolutely incredible. Shila and her sisters were wonderful ambassadors for their kin in the wild. They helped to inspire awe of these oft-misunderstood carnivores and helped us shed an important light on the critical need for coexisting with these social canines and other wildlife in urban and remote areas.”

Woodland Park said it will now begin the process of finding other gray wolves to live at the zoo. Shila lived in the Living Northwest Trail, which is also home to Canada lynx, brown bears, snowy owls, river otters, western pond turtles, and more wildlife native to the Pacific Northwest, the Woodland Park Zoo added.

“Although the global population of gray wolves is stable, the species was nearly eradicated in the United States through systematic hunting, poisoning, and trapping,” wrote the Woodland Park Zoo. “However, wolves have shown how resilient they can be given legal protections and the space they need to roam. In Washington, wolf populations are naturally repopulating.”