I was in the middle of a conference on STI's this afternoon when I heard about the Columbus Zoo euthanizing its male polar bear, Nanuq. He was my favorite old man bear and I loved helping to feed him and the sister bears when I interned there. I loved watching him take his midday swim and nap. My supervisor was sitting next to me and, apparently, didn't understand that I'd actually worked with him and his keepers so she derailed the conversation into a talk about animals she liked at the zoo and zoonotic TB transmission between keepers and elephants. Ordinarily, I'm all for talking about zoonotic infections, but not at that moment.