{"id":418746,"date":"2026-08-28T00:48:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-28T00:48:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/418746\/"},"modified":"2026-08-28T00:48:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-28T00:48:11","slug":"dallas-zoo-announces-death-of-20-year-old-sumatran-tiger-melati","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/418746\/","title":{"rendered":"Dallas Zoo announces death of 20-year-old Sumatran tiger Melati"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/oakcliff.advocatemag.com\/melati05\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-92050\" class=\"size-full wp-image-92050\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Melati05.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2048\" height=\"1319\"  \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-92050\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo courtesy of the Dallas Zoo.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/oakcliff.advocatemag.com\/2026\/08\/origins-of-the-dallas-zoo\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Dallas Zoo<\/a> recently lost the oldest tiger of the Sumatran Tiger Species Survival Plan.<\/p>\n<p>Melati, a 20-year-old Sumatran tiger, was humanely euthanized last week due to age-related health issues, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/DchCuRVjN2D\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">according to a social media post shared from the Dallas Zoo on Wednesday.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n<p>She first arrived at the Dallas Zoo in 2009 and became a favorite among the zoologists that cared for her. She was known affectionately as the \u201csupermodel\u201d of the tiger building.<\/p>\n<p>The veterinary and animal care teams made the decision following her condition declining further in recent weeks. Initial necropsy revealed that Melati had a kidney disease, which significantly affected her quality of life.<\/p>\n<p>After careful evaluation the teams made the decision to make \u201cthe most compassionate choice\u201d to prevent any further discomfort and to allow Melati to pass peacefully.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are incredibly grateful for the long, remarkable life she lived and for the many years we had with her,\u201d the Zoo said in a statement. \u201cShe will be deeply missed by everyone at the Dallas Zoo.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\t\tShare This Story, Choose Your Platform!<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1787878091_328_4b7788cb0990e4978f03f293513e201327c04def34eb630c23899a78f7ca98bf.png\"  class=\"avatar avatar-72 photo\" height=\"72\" width=\"72\" decoding=\"async\"\/>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tVictoria Hernandez is the Oak Cliff editor for Advocate Media. Prior to joining the Advocate, she wrote for Walton Insights, KUAF 91.3 and UARK Student Media. Victoria studied at the University of Arkansas, earning a B.A. in English\/Journalism with minors in history and gender studies and a M.A. in Journalism with a Graduate Certificate in African and African American Studies. She can be reached by email at vhernandez@advocatemag.com\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo courtesy of the Dallas Zoo. The Dallas Zoo recently lost the oldest tiger of the Sumatran Tiger&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":418747,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[145855,102,104,103,24840,145856,145857,145858,48308],"class_list":["post-418746","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-animal-care-team","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news","tag-dallas-zoo","tag-meltai","tag-sumatran-tiger-species-survival-plan","tag-supermodel-tiger","tag-veterinary-team"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=418746"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418746\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/418747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=418746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=418746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=418746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}