Amur tiger · No. 14 of 22
The Zoo That Had To Trade Its Best Player To Fix The Stadium
Bramble Park lost accreditation, so Ursula had to go.
The Deal
The Grades
Indianapolis
Took on an elderly animal as a favor to the league. Good citizenship, limited on-field return.
Bramble Park
Not a basketball trade. A small-market club losing its headline attraction in order to keep operating.
The Breakdown
Watertown, South Dakota is a small market and Ursula was the headline attraction. Then the zoo was denied AZA reaccreditation, partly over habitat conditions, and because the tiger and bear areas are physically linked, nothing could be renovated with her still in the building.
So she went to Indianapolis. Her keepers described her as a social butterfly. Because of her age, she is not coming back. Local radio ran a piece telling residents to say their goodbyes before she was gone for good.
This is the least glamorous transaction type in the sport and one of the most common: a franchise that has to move its most popular animal in order to build the facility that would have let it keep her.
