Today has been a zoo (no pun intended) with all the phone calls from the media about this incident. I am glad to be of help and am amazed at the volume of calls. Just a few additional notes…
Zoos that meet the mandatory accreditation standards are required to maintain safety and emergency protocols that go beyond federal, state or local requirements. San Francisco Zoo is accredited by the AZA through 2011.
Why were the police called? This is best answered by zoo personnel but in crisis situations there are usually specific protocols that are followed. In crisis situations, memorandums of understanding usually exist between multiple agencies which allows them to come in quickly. Police and fire are usually dispatched to crisis situations.
Police would provide additional backup and human management and they are astute in the use of fire arms. Usually there is a crisis management team on site. The team is usually zoo keepers and zoo animal management personnel. Contingency plans and mitigation are part of the accreditation process for zoos. However, I am not familiar with the current SF Zoo’s practices of team training or protocols.
What about my consultaiton at the SF Zoo? This took place in 1996 when I was invited to visit by the curator. As a favor, I traveled up to the zoo to assess Tony the tiger (Tatiana’s mate). The assessment/recommendations were published in the Journal of the American Association of Zoo Keepers in May of 1996.
Could the animal morph into a super tiger and leap over the moat and enclosure walls? To my knowledge this hasn’t happened before, however adrenelin and other circumstances could contribute to an unsual escape, but there is probably a more mundane explanation.
Lions, tigers, leopards, and other cats are predators–they are hardwired to kill living things and eat them. The recent tiger attack at the San Francisco Zoo involved attacks on three visitors. There was one fatality and the other two victims are in critical condition.
According to Big Cat Rescue the U.S. (up through 2006) has 79% of ALL captive cat incidents. Since there is no reporting agency that keeps such records the actual numbers are unknown.
In a captive environment, predators will exhibit hardwired behavior, especially at feeding time or under stress conditions. Aggression is common in escaped captive wildife.
Although each situation is different, unfamiliar surroundings put an animal on alert and into attack mode. For the animals, survival of the fittest often translates into attack first–investigate later.
Just how Tatiana escaped has not been revealed yet. The refurbished exhibit was only reopened on September 7, 2007 so it will be interesting to see what the investigation reveals.
Wild animal escapes may be due to equipment failure, design flaws, human error, or damage to an exhibit, such as in the case of disasters.
Did you hear about the beavers who were given a death sentence because they chewed a few park trees? Fortunately, the public outcry changed everything.
We encroach more and more on wildlif–but the answer is not to kill them because they are inconvenient.
