An Amur tiger at the Toronto Zoo. ( Courtesy of Toronto Zoo ) TORONTO - The news that a tiger tested positive for COVID-19 at the Bronx Zoo in New York dropped like a bomb at the Toronto Zoo.
Staff traded messages after news broke Sunday night. By Monday morning, new precautions — including wearing masks, gloves and coveralls — had been put in place to protect the facility's four tigers and its other big cats that include lions, cheetahs, clouded leopards, snow leopards and jaguars. "It was disturbing," said Andrew Lentini, the senior director of wildlife at the zoo, when he learned about the novel coronavirus infecting a tiger. "It wasn't on my radar at all.