Three elephants die at Kent animal parks

Three female elephants have died in a two-week period at two Kent animal parks.

Two were put to sleep at Howletts Wild Animal Park, Canterbury, on 2 and 10 April after one was was hurt by another female and a second, that was suffering from an infection, collapsed.

A third elephant, found by its keepers unable to get to its feet, died at Port Lympne, near Ashford on Thursday.

The Aspinall Foundation which runs both sites said the deaths were unrelated.

Animal director, Adrian Harland, said: "The deaths are unfortunate but almost certainly completely coincidental. They do not appear at this stage to be in any way connected to each other.

"We are in the process of carrying out full post-mortems which will include pathology and toxicology reports - a procedure we always carry out with animal deaths."