ILLI**IS: A 54-year-old orangutan at the Brookfield Zoo outside Chicago has been euthanized due to worsening health problems, after becoming the second oldest female Bornean orangutan k**wn to exist in the world, zoo officials said on Saturday.
The zoo said in a statement the animal, called Maggie, died on Friday. Maggie, who had a reputation for curiosity and intelligence, was born at the San Diego Zoo in 1961 and gave birth to four offspring there before serving as a surrogate mother to two infant orangutans, the statement said.
The World's oldest k**wn female orangutan was born in 1955 and is still alive at the Tama Zoological Park in Tokyo, said Chicago Zoological Society spokeswoman Sondra Katzen.