Some animals can simply not be tamed, with zoos reporting mishaps including a still-missing monkey, cheetah bites and nature-defying gibbons in the past year.
A list of incidents provided by the Environmental Protection Authority covering the past financial year also includes a cluster of tarantulas taken home by a curator, and a tiger in Wellington that charged a child.
In the Wellington Zoo incident, revealed by The Dominion Post in May this year, tiger Rokan charged a child during a tiger-training demonstration for a school group. A keeper had failed to secure a gate, but there was still mesh in the way of the tiger.
A tarantula incident happened at Auckland Museum. A spokeswoman said the museum had approval and licences to hold tarantulas. The museum's contracted live animal curator was applying for permission to take the spiders to a "containment facility" at home - built to Ministry for Primary Industry standards - but took them before necessary paperwork was completed.
The curator returned them to the museum but planned to take them to the off-site facility once paperwork was finished, in the next few weeks.
The tarantulas were taken from the museum in late 2012 and not returned till July this year.
In September last year, two spider monkeys escaped from New Plymouth's Pouakai Zoo. While one was quickly recaptured the other, Tommy, 11, was never found and presumed dead.
At Orana Wildlife Park in Christchurch, chief executive Lynn Anderson confirmed there had been four incidents - three of them escapes - during the year.
In October last year, a senior staff member with 20 years' experience ignored protocol when taking a younger keeper into a cheetah's enclosure to clean it.
Because the cheetah was hand-raised, keepers could enter its enclosure in pairs as long as one was cleaning and the other watched the cheetah.
This was ignored and the cheetah latched on to the younger keeper's calf. She needed two stitches. The senior staff member chose to resign during the internal investigation.
In May this year, an electric fence at the zoo was turned off because of flooding. It meant a cheetah cub named Lion was able to swim a moat - despite having to touch another 4000-volt fence - and get into a public area.
"We are still scratching our heads how it got out." The cub was only out for 10 minutes and pleased when keepers arrived to return it to the cage.
In September last year, a siamang gibbon named Oscar was, according to witnesses, being taunted by members of the public.
He managed to get on to a small island and - despite gibbons being unable to swim - got out of the enclosure by pulling himself across the moat holding on to weeds on the bottom.
His two offspring, Kasih and Cian, wanted to go with their father so climbed along a high rope and leapt 10 metres down to the public area. "They hit the ground with a poomph."
Recapture was "quite an ordeal" and zoo-goers were put in safe-houses until the monkeys went back inside their night house. The zoo had made significant changes to avoid a repeat.
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The final mishap in Orana Park's annus horribilis was in June this year, when two rhinoceros got out of their enclosure after a keeper left a gate open. However, they only entered another enclosure.
At Auckland Zoo in April, a cheetah being hand-fed was distracted by a running chicken. The keeper suffered a superficial hand wound.
Twice in December last year, meerkats scaled a wall to get to a roof they were not supposed to be on, a spokeswoman said.
"Meerkats naturally seek high vantage points in areas where they live to enable them to carry out sentry duty for the rest of their family group."
The zoo made improvements and was planning a new enclosure.
