Goodbye Saturn

[tiggerblue10]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-52784240

He survived WWII and lived 84 years, albeit in captivity. Apparently he was one of the oldest ever alligators.

[wolf63]

I didn't think that they lived that long - it's a good age.

I am more interested in what he did after he was bombed out of the zoo and was wandering around for three years. I know that it was a chaotic time (my dad was there just after the war) but it's not the sort of animal that blends in.

[tiggerblue10]

Good question, Wolf. I wondered that too. Was he just walking around Berlin casually? Haha

[marval]

RIP Saturn, a really good age.

[iluvmargie]

Poor soul, I bet he lived a long and lonely life, looks like he's being pushed by a broom in that picture. Hope you're in alligator paradise now Saturn xx

[pastafreak]

It says "he loved being massaged with a brush"...awwww!
Maybe that's what the broom was for.

[Mamyalynne]

Certainly looks like he enjoyed being brushed, quite a life - RIP Saturn.

[jno]

Berliners were reduced to eating zoo animals after WW2, so he was probably luckier to escape that than escape the war.

[wolf63]

Jno, my dad was a butcher by trade and that's what he did in the Army. He said that some of the Germans brought their dogs to get killed and prepared for eating. He said that he sent them away.

I don't suppose Saturn was thought to be edible.

[bookbinder]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_(alligator)

[tomus42]

//Berliners were reduced to eating zoo animals after WW2, so he was probably luckier to escape that than escape the war. //

With food being that scarce you wonder what they fed Saturn with.

[daisypotter]

He may have loved being massaged with the brush, I didn't see that bit, but he still spent a long lonely life with no-one of his own kind to relate to. Not a good life for any animal.

[Mamyalynne]

I don't think anyone would disagree that he should have been left to thrive naturally in Mississippi where he was born in 1936, but hopefully the majority of those who cared for him after he was placed in captivity did so with a good heart.

[daisypotter]

Well of course mamya, but he was STILL deprived of his own kind, which was my point in both my posts. Not fair to do that to any animal, no matter how well it may have been looked after.