ZSL Whipsnade Zoo Chimp escape at Whipsnadfe

bongorob

Well-Known Member
15+ year member
This morning two chimpanzees Coco and Jonnie managed to find a way out of their enclosure at Whipsnade and gained access to the public area of the zoo. Coco was recaptured but sadly staff were not able to capture Jonnie and he was shot.
 
According to ISIS, they had 1.2. That means that 1.1 escaped, and now,after shooting the male, they only have 0.2

Well, either you misread it or ISIS listings are totally innacurate. The number should be 7.2.

Whipsnade have a main group of 6 male and one female chimpanzees.
In addition the old London pair Jonnie and Coco have been living there since moving from London over a year ago. I noticed on my recent visit this old pair were still living seperate from the rest of their chimps.

After this unfortunate incident, maybe they'll be able to integrate the female 'Coco' into the main group now.
 
There are 7 chimps at Whipsnade according to this report.

Zoo kills the chimp that tunnelled to freedom - Telegraph

Yes, I just looked on Whipsnade's website which has a feature on the chimps and the main group is 5.1 (not 6.1)The Telegraph article list the same number, so with the surviving femnale 'Coco' it is now seven.
Interestingly it seems Coco is the daughter of the Dudley female 'Cherry' who was also at London for a while. So Coco is probably the only offspring of Dudley's original group. I'm sure they'll try and add her to the group now.
 
There are 7 chimps at Whipsnade according to this report.

Zoo kills the chimp that tunnelled to freedom - Telegraph

Yes, I just looked on Whipsnade's website which has a feature on the chimps and the main group is 5.1 (not 6.1)The Telegraph article list the same number, so with the surviving femnale 'Coco' it is now seven.
Interestingly it seems Coco is the daughter of the Dudley female 'Cherry' who was also at London for a while. So Coco is probably the only offspring of Dudley's original group. I'm sure they'll try and add her to the group now.
 
Sorry I posted that twice...

I wonder why they had to shoot the male chimp, rather than dart him with a tranquiliser?
 
Public safety. they are probably the most dangerous animals to keep in captivity. Except maybe jags....

Yes, I think your right there. In the newspaper article it made out they weren't believed dangerous, but I think they were just defusing a difficult situation. Then toward the end it suddenly said they had to shoot him. An adult male chimp on the rampage is an ugly customer indeed...
 
plus any zoo that has escapes doesn't want alot of publicity about it.

It could be very damaging to them, plus they are still unsure how they escaped!
 
I wonder why they had to shoot the male chimp, rather than dart him with a tranquiliser?

grantsmb,

None of us are privy to the circumstances under which the descision was taken to shoot the chimp. I am sure though that it was not taken lightly. A dedicated staff and veterinary are loath to do that and dread the moment they have to.

I would concur that the animal was so excited that no amount of drugs would have flattened him and would actually have exacerbated the situation. So, there are situations were traquilisation just is not an option. I think this was one of them.

Of course it is sad, but ... what can one do?
 
plus any zoo that has escapes doesn't want alot of publicity about it.

It could be very damaging to them, plus they are still unsure how they escaped!
It didn`t do Chester any harm when the male Sumatran got out of the old Orang house in 2004 he was sat on the roof for a while till they got him back in.
 
Sorry I posted that twice...

I wonder why they had to shoot the male chimp, rather than dart him with a tranquiliser?

Yes, I do have the same doubt.
and zoogiraffe showed us the possibility that the Chimp may not do harm to human beings.

what's more we should show our respect to any creatures that have wisdom.

hey everybody, don't you think a chimp that can dig a tunnel to pursue for freedom have no wisdom?
 
i think public safeyt must come first, whether its an escaped prisoner or zoo animal.
i would guage the threat level of a chimpanzee male as being as high as an escaped bear, big cat or rampaging elephant.
interestingly, i thought it would be a matter of time before these animals escaped. im just about to read the article, but as anyone who has seen the enclosure design could tell you, the back fence only extends out over the moat by about 2 ft or so, with hotwires preventing access.
i thought it was quite a brave way to contain the animals
 
obviously the enclosure was inadequate. i'm very supprised they are reported to have their animals back on display in the enclosure already.

look, i have no idea what happened but i'm going to take a guess and say that this zoo, like so many other that have ended up shooting escaped apes in particular, probabaly either had a poor "in event of escape" procedure in pace or it was a bit extreme.

really, you would think that all good zoos would have tranquiliser guns and appropriate doses on hand to be utilised at any stage in the event of escape.
 
One of the newspaper reports indicate that Jonnie, the male, was outside the zoo boundary (the newspaper said "it" was in a near-by field). Therefore, the decision would have been made by the police, not the zoo staff. Tranquilizing would not have been an option, if the situation was taken over by the police and the chimp was outside the boundaries.
 
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