Don't panic, but there's an animal loose in the Zoo Grounds.

There are also certain animals which seem to have natural bastard tendencies... Cape Buffalo, Komodo Dragons for example...

 

Because many species of large WILD animals are inevitably dangerous and react aggressively to people- whereas their zoo counterparts have often become extremely tame due to years of close association with their keepers and visitors.

Take Indian rhinos- a highly dangerous species in the wild, yet placid and friendly in captivity. Admittedly an escaped one might become very excitable/aggressive in new/unfamiliar surroundings but it still wouldn't invoke the same fear in me as a wild one would.

On the other hand a captive chimp is far more dangerous than a wild one as it has absolutely no fear of man- wild chimps don't realise they are stronger than people and are normally frightened(or respectful) of them and won't attack(except in very rare cases where they have become over familiar with people -and even then it is not motivated in the same way). The excitable nature of a captive chimp coupled with its total lack of fear is what makes it such a lethal combination.

The reason I nominated Jaguar as my first choice though is because with most of these others, you are going to know where they are and could take evasive action. If a Jaguar(or Leopard?) escaped and went into hiding, it immediately becomes a potentially lethal situation over which there is no control.

 

Most dangerous animal in the zoo is without doubt the wasp. They attack hundreds of innocent zoo visitors every summer.

On second thoughts there can be more dangerous creatures on the loose:
http://www.zoobeat.com/22/guns-zoo-21656/

Most escaped animals are frightened and run away and hide, and give visitors time to get away. They aren't malicious or vengeful, and certainly unlikely to start hunting for food the second they are out. I can't think of a single example where as escaped animal has seriously harmed a member of the public. Even the woman bitten by the gorilla at Rotterdam was not badly hurt. Most serious incidents involve keepers, drunken idiots entering enclosures, or animal interactions.

 

I believe a Jaguar(or was it two) dug its way out of its enclosure at a French zoo a few years ago and killed at least one child.

The woman whom Bokito(the Gorilla) attacked at Rotterdam was quite badly bitten, covered in blood and in a state of shock. The consensus was that Bokito attacked her as a gesture of dominance.

 

I had to laugh, while backing away rapidly, at Paignton recently. There was a sign stuck on the window of the Howler Monkey house so I went over to see what it was about. It was a warning about a wasp nest in a tree next to the house - which you could only stand beside while you were reading the sign! Not a lot of thought went into that - unless the staff were falling about with laughter somewhere.

 

It seems about right, surely that was a joke

 

Not so funny if you'd been stung, though!

 

No, but the Zoo has warned them even if the sign was in a stupid position.

 

Ok I take some of it back. However most escaped animals if given a free route would try to get away - this is what usually happens with chimps and monkeys that escape.

The jaguar story from Doué-la-Fontaine:
BBC News | Europe | Escaped jaguar kills child


I find it surprising that there are attempts to explain Bokito's behaviour as dominance when he was presumably frightened and disorientated. Then again maybe he wasn't. The Dutch woman had a broken arm as well as bite wounds which I agree is serious. She still likes Bokito though. Woman still likes gorilla despite attack - Europe - MSNBC.com

 

Quite a few middleaged ladies in some European zoos have special 'relationships' with male Gorillas in their local zoo, visiting them often etc. I believe this lady was one such, you may have seen the footage of Bokito being very 'familiar' pulling faces/interacting with her through the glass of the indoor cage.

I believe one theory is he was tempted to escape because he was frustrated at not being able to get near enough to her. Or that when he escaped she was in his path and he attacked her (the idea being that he bit her as punishment as he would a female gorilla that didn't submit to him) From the video clips afterwards in the restaurant he looks quite calm and appears at a loss what to do next. Bokito was handraised and at an earlier age had climbed out of his enclosure in Berlin Zoo more than once- seemingly to join people because he liked them.

 

I think the scariest for me would be a black rhino,african or asian elephant bull,river hippo,cape buffalo,tiger,lion,jaguar,polar or grizzly bear an last but certainly not least,african wild dog and hyena

 

Some animals do come back to the zoo... Auckland Zoo had a wolf escape about 50 years ago... It made it out of the zoo grounds and that night when everyone went home they left the gate ajar and found it just inside the gate the following morning after it had been hit by a car...

 

I've been a visitor three times when there has been an escape, crimson-winged parakeet, Bennett's wallaby and hamadryas baboon. The latter two were quite easily recaptured, but the parakeet was still at large when I left the zoo.