And I’ll bet he wasn’t in the Death Pool. Craig was a very well-known elephant in Amboseli National Park in Kenya. He was 54 years old and had massive tusks weighing about 45kg each. Craig lived free and wild (although habituated to humans) and died of natural causes.
Maybe he’ll meet Kiko the giraffe.
That should be a doozy.
54 is on the young side for an elephant.
I’ve read that the most usual form of “death by old age” for elephants is their teeth wearing out. They only get so many sets of teeth over their lifetime, and their diet wears them down to where they need to be replaced.
Let me be the first nitpicker to claim that “autopsy” refers to a post-mortem partial dissection and skilled examination of a deceased human to determine the details of their death.
The corresponding term for non-human decedants is “necropsy”.
Kiko will be / was necropsied.
Same for humans in primitive conditions.
With the advent of cooking, extended families, and adequate supplies of calories we can keep great Grandma alive awhile after her teeth go. But only so long. And absent that support death comes both early and surely.
Yeah, I think they usually live into their 60s/70s. I didn’t see any specific cause of death in what I read. We saw a lot of elephants on our safaris, but the park rangers have their hands full keeping poachers out. There are no fences in any of the parks we went to, so migratory animals can roam freely. Elephants don’t really migrate, but they do roam in search of water and food. At least Craig died on his own terms.
I’d like to nitpick your nitpick. Although this distinction may be common usage in some quarters, it is hardly a hard and fast rule. The Greek root for “autopsy” just means to see for oneself. The roots for “necropsy” means to see a dead body. If you have a definite cite I will retire gracefully from the fray.
Just Google “who performs an autopsy on an animal?”
You’ll be given results that show that it’s called a necropsy, not an autopsy, and a necropsy is performed by a veterinary pathologist. An autopsy is performed by a forensic pathologist and it’s done on humans.
What if you suspect that the animal was… Murdered? Dun, dun, DUNNNNN
But seriously, who examines am animal if say someone’s pet dies and they call the police because they think that someone killed it? The forensic pathologist doesn’t know animals and the vet doesn’t know signs of foul play?
An interesting contention. And not one I’m equipped to answer authoritatively.
I’ll invite @Jackmannii to opine on at least professional usage, if not dictionary reality. This question ought to be right up his alley.
At least in the world of big pharma, necropsy is the word. I had always assumed the first syllable was pronounced like “neck”, but when I first heard it in the wild, pronounced by a woman who worked in the field, she always said it like “knee”. So I guess it’s “knee”.
And why would this happen for a person’s pet? They did this with my orange tabby cat during the Pandemic because the week before he died he bit a vet tech (she must have done something to deserve it). Not only did I get a visit from Animal Control for me to sign some paperwork, but they were required by the state to have his brain necropsied to make sure he didn’t have rabies–this was because the bite had happened within 10 days of his death.
So in a sense your cat was a suspect and the necropsy was a way to convict or clear his name.
Ref this:
I’ve never heard it pronounced and had assumed “neck” also. Color me surprised about the “knee” pronunciation. Unless your source was English. They pronounce everything funny. Meethane anyone? 
Which makes me wonder about other necro- words such as necrotic, necrophilia, necromancy, etc. As Captain Obvious is fond of saying, English is not real big on consistency. But I’d be surprised to learn of much variation in how the necro- part is pronounced, at least among US English speakers.
Two relevant links. And that’s just the Big Ten.
I’ve no idea what veterinary forensic pathologists are paid, but if salaries are anything like what human forensic pathologists typically get, it isn’t much. No amount of money seems sufficient for a veterinary forensic pathologist who does large animal cases.
“O.K., Dr. Stein, today you’re scheduled to do post-mortems on two victims of cow-tipping and an elephant that stampeded at the zoo.”
“That’s it. I quit!”
For what it’s worth, I’ve heard it pronounced many times, and it was never pronounced with a long-E sound in the first syllable; always more like “NEH-crop-see”.
Here’s what Google’s AI gave me (possibly a total fabrication, of course):
Summary of Pronunciation Variations
Region Phonetic Spelling IPA General American NEK-rop-see /ˈnɛk rɑːp si/ Received Pronunciation (UK) NEK-rop-see /ˈnɛkrɒpsi/ Alternative (UK) nuh-KROP-see /nɪˈkrɒpsi/ Alternative (US/Professional) NEE-krop-see /ˈniː krɑːp si/
So I ran into the 4th variant.
And it was scientists saying it that way, so it fits.
I think in some random setting I’d use the first pronunciation so as to avoid strange looks from everyone who never heard of the other.