Famous Animal Escapes (Preferably with happy endings)

HoneyDontBadger

HoneyDontBadger

Well-Known Member
5+ year member
I read a fabulous book of short stories about London Zoos first onsite live in Vet - Zoo Tales

It tells of many escapes in those formative years. Including a Polar Bear, during a thick smog…..

I thought that might be a basis for an interesting thread???

My very best

HDB
 
There are members here who can give a fuller story of the incident as I was either very young or potentially a ball of stem cells when it happened, but the hippo escape at Longleat is potentially the most famous in (relatively) recent years. From what I remember, it resulted in a farmer getting quite the fright from a 2-ton semi aquatic terminator charging towards him. That of course has a happy ending, as the hippo survived and she lived at Longleat until last year.

A very recent one is the bear escape at Whipsnade, resulting in 2 bears being shot and a wild boar bull being mauled. Obviously not a very nice ending.
 
I had a green iguana who punched a hole in a screened window and lived in the wilds of Missouri for about 4 months. (It was actually a strip of 30 ft wide trees lining a park). Whenever I would hear the blue jays going crazy I would try and recapture her. Whenever I would climb a tree she would jump down and get away. I cut a branch off once and she still scampered away. One day I saw her near the top of a 40 ft tree which was a little by itself and very close to the road.
I got the bright idea to call the fire department and to my surprise they arrived with a cherry picker.
They let me get in and with a fireman we went up about 50 feet and then came down and I was able to pluck her out of the tree! She lived another 16 years without escape.
 
There are so many you'll never hear of I'm afraid... biggest one in the history of Osnabrück Zoo:

Elephant Targa, who died in Augsburg last year, arrived in Osnabrück wild caught in 1961. Back then they were led from their indoor stable to a paddock each day. Only two days after her arrival a shetland pony with a carriage crossed their way and Targa was so shocked that she ran away immediately. They found her a while after in another suburb. She was also known for overcoming the electrical wire to take a bath later on.

But other escapes... well hybrid bear with not so good ending, wolves multiple times, silver foxes, pelicans, coatis several times. Most escapes end well and the animals get caught quickly, but I think there are many more than we can think of.
 
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