Paul the octopus dies

Famous for his flawless World Cup predictions this summer, Paul the Octopus HAS DIED at the age of two-and-a-half.

This raises an interesting question… It is very common to have shared global mourning over the deaths of various humans. John F. Kennedy was placed on postage stamps around the world, Princess Diana was a global icon whose death sent shockwaves in all directions, John Lennon was familiar to everyone, etc.

But what have been the best examples of collective global mourning for an animal?

I suppose there have been some disturbing sudden deaths of racehorses, such as RUFFIAN, the filly who was euthanized after a 1975 match race with Foolish Pleasure. (I have a vague memory of seeing this happen at age 7 and not really being sure what it was all about, except that the disturbingness was obvious.)

Any other cases come to mind? I feel like there have been some that I’m forgetting.

But there aren’t too many global celebrity animals to begin with. And whereas the really tragic human deaths of a global scale are those by assassination or accident, celebrity animals (what few there are) are never assassinated, and thus we are probably considering cases of celebrity animals dying in accidents.

And by these criteria, racehorses would be the prime candidate: there are lots of famous racehorses, and they do have a legitimate chance of fatal accidents every time they compete.