ZSL Whipsnade Zoo Chimp escape at Whipsnadfe

Having been in the situation twice, of being on site at a zoo when dangerous animals have escaped, I can tell you that every case is very different, and no one, aside from the people there at the time, are in a position to judge the actions of zoo staff. Of course, no zoo staff wants to shoot one of their own animals, that goes without saying.

But when an animal is out of its familiar surroundings, their behaviour and their mental state changes dramatically. A normally docile animal, when in unfamiliar surrounds, particularly if there are members of the public shouting or making a fuss, can be a time bomb, just waiting to go off. Zoo staff could quite well endanger their own lives, and the lives of their visitors if they chase or even approach the animal. And in these cases, public safety has to come first.

And Jelle has a very valid point when he says:

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.
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It would seem obvious to those who haven't worked in zoos, that the thing to do, is fire a dart at the animal, sit back calmly and wait until it falls asleep, and then go pick it up and return it to its cage. In reality, this rarely happens. Most major zoos have written policies about the actions to be taken when a dangerous animal escapes into the zoo, and I have no doubt that the staff at Whipsnade followed that policy.

So please, don't assume that the Whipsnade staff might have been able to avoid shooting the animal, unless you have all the facts. And of course as we all know, the real facts are often not reported in the media.
 
ZooPro said:
But when an animal is out of its familiar surroundings, their behaviour and their mental state changes dramatically. A normally docile animal, when in unfamiliar surrounds, particularly if there are members of the public shouting or making a fuss, can be a time bomb, just waiting to go off. Zoo staff could quite well endanger their own lives, and the lives of their visitors if they chase or even approach the animal. And in these cases, public safety has to come first.So please, don't assume that the Whipsnade staff might have been able to avoid shooting the animal, unless you have all the facts. And of course as we all know, the real facts are often not reported in the media.
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Don't get me wrong ZooPro. I fully understand why there may have been no option than to shoot a highly excited, ramaging male chimpanzee who had been on the loose for some time. I've seen video of escaped chimpanzees before and its not a pretty sight. I have also worked with zoo Chimpanzees in the past too, so I'm fully aware of the risks involved.

My main query was that they weren't able to dart him earlier on, but as you say, I don't have all the facts at my disposal.
 
glyn said:
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
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I cannot be 100% sure on this, but I think you will find the old pair Jonny(who was shot) and Koko did not have access with the main group(5.1) onto the island. They have been at Whipsnade a year now but two weeks ago when I saw them again, they were still segregated and were in the original meshed outdoor enclosure. I am not sure they've been with the group at all during this time at Whipsnade.

So they probably escaped either from this or the recently extended indoor 'chimpnasium' area which they also use, not the main Island. As I said, I am not 100% sure but the fact they escaped together without the others leads me to believe this was the situation.

If the male was off the zoo property, then its no surprise if the decision was made to shoot him dead. Other escaped apes have suffered a similar fate too. I'm interested that they say they don't know how they escaped though.
 
patrick said:
obviously the enclosure was inadequate. i'm very supprised they are reported to have their animals back on display in the enclosure already.
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That would be because the main group on the Island at Whipsnade weren't involved in ther escape.
 
I am glad that both ZooPro and grantsmb take such a balanced view of this escape. Having worked with handling and sedating wild animals at close quarters myself, I just know how variable capture situations can be or even become. While before an operation one does his/her utmost to exclude every mishap or mistake from occurring, the real life event can become something one could not have expected beforehand.

In escape situations, it is hardly relevant to make assumptions as to why or how the animal escaped, it is how, when and with what to contain or recapture the animal. It is even bolder for us to judge an enclosure inadequate without first knowing all the ins and outs of the escape firsthand.

It is now up to keeper staff and curatorial management to ascertain what happened when both chimps escaped, how they made it over the barriers and how in future this event may be prevented from occurring.

You can rest assured that in a zoo situation management has 3 objectives that prevail when designing exhibits: 1) assure safety for the animals on exhibit, 2) ensure safety of staff while working on-site and in off exhibit areas and 3) safety for the paying visitor. And that in the above mentioned order.

I look thus forward to a balanced reporting by the zoo or a newspaper of some moral standing. However, whether the media are really interested in the latter is a point of conjecture (as it quickly becomes an accusation game rather than a balanced investigation into what an animal escape really constitutes).
 
I think I posted on here once before that three adult male chimpanzees escaped at the Causeway Safari Park in Ireland some years ago (it has since closed) They were filmed inside a cafeteria where a number of people were trying to get away from them. By this time the males were very excited and displaying aggressively, I can't remember if anyone was badly hurt in the encounter, if not, they were very lucky.

At a Chimpanzee 'sanctuary' in America more recently, an adult male 'pet' chimp which had escaped attacked and badly disfigured a man as he tried to protect his wife from it. Ironically they were there to visit another chimp which had previously been their own pet.

I've often heard it said that wild chimps are actually less dangerous than their captive counterparts as their fear of man prevents aggressive behaviour.
 
and if the police get involved , the police are only interested in one option

with 3 incidents that I can recall in NZ zoos , the police were determined to "shoot to kill "

NZ police rarely use gunfire for incidents ( the average cop on the beat is not armed with firearms ) and I doubt if other countries police forces are less inclined to shoot .....

And no doubt tranquillisers take some time to take effect -- even a few seconds ; and this could be long enough for the animal to do some serious damage to someone . The chimp is probably also quite cabable at removing the dart from its flesh and accurately throwing it at some human .
The results from that possibility could be very serious .
 
grantsmb said:
I think I posted on here once before that three adult male chimpanzees escaped at the Causeway Safari Park in Ireland some years ago I can't remember if anyone was badly hurt in the encounter, if not, they were very lucky.
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I should have added that in this case, the 3 males also had to be shot too.
 
I Think they probably did the right thing by shooting them, tranqualsisng them would not have effect really..
 
ZooMania said:
I Think they probably did the right thing by shooting them, tranqualsisng them would not have effect really..
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I imagine you could get a shot with a tranquiliser gun when a chimp(s) first escapes. They're more likely to still be fairly quiet, either nervous or inquisitive, in that early stage. Once excitement builds and they start to display and scream, its probably out of the question.
 
Yes, i suppose when the chance to dart him arrived, it was too late as the chimp was very exited. Still a shame though. The teo escapees were the two London Chimps werent they.
 
Having had first hand experience of sedative darts with a number of species I can say that darting really would not have been an option in this case. Firstly even the fastest acting sedatives we have available to us take at least 5 to 10 minutes to act, and probably longer in an escapee. Who knows what potential damage could have been done in this period before the drug took effect.
Secondly as previously mentioned these drugs often cause a phase of excitement first which would only have made the situation worse.
Lastly the accuracy of a dart is only good if over fairly short distances (less than 10m), and chimps are notoriously wise to the process. They will pull a dart out and throw it straight back at you with scary accuracy. The sedative drugs are so dangerous to humans (lethal dose very small) that it just wouldn't have been possible to risk using it in the public domain.

I hope this quells the suggestion that darting should have been used, as it would not have been appropriate in this case and particularly this species.

The keepers did all they could.
 
ZooMania said:
The teo escapees were the two London Chimps werent they.
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Yes they were. They left to make way for 'Gorilla Kingdom' and have been living at Whipsnade over a year now but I don't think they've been able to add them to the main group. They were definately on their own when I saw them a couple of weeks ago.

Perhaps now, without the male, they will be able to integrate the female 'Koko' into their group. Whipsnade's group is oddly imbalanced with five males and only one female so she'd be a good addition. Otherwise she'll just be living alone... :(
 
As I understand it Koko virtually handed herself in and was encouraged back into the enclosure with food, Jonnie was the opposite and headed off across the park, so didn't really leave the keepers with much choice.
 
Thanx vetandy,

It is difficult as it is to get people to really realise what sedative drugs can or can not do. It is so unfortunate that the chimps at Whipsnade escaped and .. apparently left the zoo boundaries. What can you do .. but be sad as to the outcome.

I just hope that zoo management will have found out how the chimps managed their feat of escape in the first place and can put paid to any further attempts by them. These are highly social, complex and intelligent creatures and are able to contemplate how to .. get out of their enclosure if they so wish.
 
Regardless of whether or not they should have attempted to tranquilize them, I'm sure the primate keepers at london who worked with the 41 year-old who was shot are privately furious at Whipsnade for this to occur in under 2 years since their transfer.

There are good examples of zoos using mild drugs to integrate adult chimpanzee groups successfully, over a fairly short period of time. It would seem that integration was not a priority in the whipsnade case...possibly it was not a desirable addition to the group from the Whipsnade teams' perspective, more that they had to make way for Gorilla Kingdom. Chimps aren't really 'in vogue' at the moment with the larger zoos and tend not to be found in collections that can exhibit gorillas or orangs. This is the kind of attitude to individual animals that I find so repugnant in our larger zoos. Jonnie was a veteran and should have been treated better in his retirement, not sent off to fill the old chimp cages vacated by the main group at whipsnade.

Another important point is that ZSL were recently criticised after a zoo inspection for their boundary fencing. I would imagine the perimeter fence at Whipsnade is even less secure. Would a hotwired perimeter fence have altered the outcome of this escape?
 
i doubt many zoo perimeter fences would keep in alot of the animals it houses in.
 
As Jonnie was shot well within zoo grounds the perimeter fence obviously played no part in the incident from his point of view. It was actually Koko that managed to leave the zoo grounds before she was recaptured.

For your information Whipsnade had tried to integrate the two additions from London into their group, but the nature of the whipsnade group and the low number of females made this impossible. To imply that the keepers at Whipsnade would not have been devastated by the turn of events shows that you obviously have very little understanding of the way zoos work and perhaps you should keep your comments to yourself in future.

The intention had been to integrate the new chimps into the group, as keeping two chimps on their own is far from ideal - it was more this that prompted their move rather than the building work at london. However despite many attempts this had not been possible as the whipsnade males are very aggressive to females, consequently the staff at whipsnade were trying to make the best of a far from ideal situation and I think were coping admirably. The enclosure that the pair escaped from had housed chimps for many years without incident so nobody could have predicted this taking place.

Andy
 
I made no implication that the keepers would not have been devastated, of course they would be, as a former keeper I understand that just fine thank you. The decision to move animals coinciding with their enclosure space being required for major new exhibits is not taken by keepers though, is it? If keeping the london animals in a pair was really the main problem, trying to integrate them long-term with whipsnade's agressive males was possibly not the best option. I don't think anyone would believe for a second that if there was a larger group at London they would have remained as part of the collection once work began on Gorilla Kingdom, or returned after construction was complete.

Human error, even if that comes down to not spotting enclosure maintenance issues over time, is likely to have played a part in the escape and I think it was correct to assume that staff who may have worked with these animals for years in London may be unhappy that one of their long-term residents escaped within 24 months of moving.

If you look at the record of Chimpanzee escapes and subsequent deaths in Uk zoos over the last ten or fifteen years, the numbers are significant, and I think warrant discussion that goes past (justified) sympathy for the keepers.
 
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