To worry about lions and other dangerous animals escaping at the zoo?

[climbingquickly]

Around the lion enclosures there is an narrow raised walkway that gives you a better view as the top of enclosure is open. You enter walkway via metal gates, it's divided into several sections, each with a set of gates. On each gate is a sign: 'If animal in walkway area, do not enter and alert a member of staff' with a sort of stop-sign featuring a lion on the walkway!! AIBU to think this isn't very safe and means lions could jump out?

Also the rhinoceros kept charging at the fence as if to escape (only a shallow ditch in front of fence)...

Anyone else get nervous at these places?

[MrsTerryPratchett]

I think you are probably about 500 times more likely to be killed in a car accident on the way to the zoo than by an escaped animal. However, people are useless at risk assessment so YANBU to think of it.

[ihatelego]

i wouldn't worry too much, just enjoy the zoo!

[Heels99]

Don't go to them then if they cause you stress and anxiety. It's not compulsory to visit zoos.
I was once at a zoo when a chimpanzee escaped.

[Xmasbaby11]

Yanbu! I have a recurring nightmare about coming across escaped lions or tigers. I have no idea why. I don't get stressed at zoos.

[Songofsixpence]

I would imagine there's about a million H&S rules and assessments and inspections with something like that.

I live near a zoo. I can hear them all roaring away to themselves. It was quite disconcerting when I first moved here

[Chippednailvarnish]

No, I confess I have never worried about escaped Lions coming to get me.

[PureMorning]

No I don't worry

I go tho the zoo with my children and would trip/throw them to the lions so i don't get mauled.
Ditto rhinos.

Be ruthless for a fearless life

[TheWitTank]

I know what you mean! I only worry because I've got a private zoo nearby which houses a large number of bears, big cats and wolves in what seem to be pretty very inadequate facilities (in my opinion of course, but I don't agree with zoo's on the whole anyway). They interact with this animals a lot (think circus). I'm out in the countryside a lot. It does cross my mind that I might come across an escapee one day and become dinner

[geekymommy]

At least here in the US, there are not a lot of zoo animal escapes where people are killed. The Association of Zoos and Aquariums, which was founded in 1924, says the first member zoo to have an animal escape where a person was killed was in San Francisco in 2007. They also say there were 175 million visits to AZA-accredited zoos and aquariums in 2008. That's pretty good odds.

Even if one animal were escaping and killing a visitor per year (which they are not), that would be a 1 in 175 million chance of being killed. That's safer than a lot of things. It's much safer than driving or riding in a car. Traffic fatalities kill 3.5 people per 100,000 in the UK each year, for about a 1 in 28,500 chance of dying. Some quick math shows you're actually more than 6000 times as likely to die in a traffic accident as you are from an escaped zoo animal.

Now, this assumes your zoo is accredited by the AZA or an organization with similar standards. If it's a non-accredited roadside animal attraction, maybe you've got more to worry about.

[limitedperiodonly]

Don't take a canal trip past London Zoo OP. The Regent's Canal runs through it past what I think is the wolf enclosure on one side. Something fierce, anyway, because there's a big sign warning you not to stop if you see any escaped animals but to raise the alarm.

I've only ever seen ducks there but they can get quite aggressive at this time of year because they're courting. Probably can't break your arm like a swan. Or tear it off like a lion

[ilovechristmas1]

and the last time a pack of lions escaped from a zoo was ??

[limitedperiodonly]

And near me a circus used to visit on May Bank holidays. A white wallaby used to 'escape' every year on the day before they opened so they could appear on the TV news that night.

He was very cute and wouldn't hurt a fly.

[Corneliusmurphy]

Some wolves escaped from their enclosure at Colchester zoo last year, but they were still within the zoo the keepers closed off the area immediately (there were visitors in the zoo at the time who were none the wiser).
Risk assessment is done all the time and the shops and visitors' builders are designed to withstand any escapees should it be necessary.
Was an interesting article about it on the bbc, though sadly the escaped wolves were shot. You'd have been fine...
(I used to have regular nightmares about this as a child though)

[shewept]

How often do animals escape from this zoo? And how many times has that resulted in death of a person?

I imagine you are more likely to be killed by your own trousers than by a lion who has escaped.

[shewept]

How often do animals escape from this zoo? And how many times has that resulted in death of a person?

I imagine you are more likely to be killed by your own trousers than by a lion who has escaped.

[OrlandoWoolf]

Just don't do this

[OutragedFromLeeds]

'and the last time a pack of lions escaped from a zoo was ??'

I don't know about lions, but a tiger escaped and killed a zoo keeper in 2012 in Cologne and 2013 in Cumbria. Both times because a gate was left open.

[TrojanWhore]

Always visit zoos with someone you know you can outrun.

Then the ravening beasts will catch them first, and you can get away whilst they have lunch.

[Corneliusmurphy]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-25462900

[limitedperiodonly]

My animal encounters are flashing before me.

I was in Longleat lion enclosure and had stopped in a designated lay-by on a bend for DH to photograph some lions lazing under a tree about 50ft away. DH cracked the window open a bit but we stayed inside the car.

A warden in a landrover was towing someone who'd broken down. As she went past she hit my car. She beeped. The warden stopped and her husband jumped out to swap details .

The lions had been lying around with their legs in the air like pussy cats but they all stood up and stared like someone had just opened a tin of cat food, which they kind of had.

One of the wardens jumped out with a rifle shouting: 'Get back in the car!'

We sorted it out when we were safely out. The steering on their car had gone and the man's first thought was: 'Oh sorry! It's all our fault.'

I also once tried to stroke a zebra at another safari park like some kind of horse whisperer. Though I wanted to talk to the animals, it certainly did not want to talk to me. TBF to me I didn't climb over a fence. It was loose in a field along with other deceptively harmless creatures such as camels and deer.

[avocadotoast]

YABU. My sister works at a zoo and escaped animals are incredibly unlikely.

(Unless they can fly - one zoo she worked at had a pelican get out and fly into the car park of a nearby hospital...)

But in all seriousness they have drills so all the staff know exactly what to do should anything escape. Where she used to work did an escaped wolf drill that was like something out of a film.

Outraged, re the tiger in Cumbria - it wasn't that a gate was left open - the bolt on the gate was found to have a fault. None of the keepers had left the gate open.

[CaspianSea]

I remember a baboon escaping from a zoo when I was a kid, and everyone scattered!
I worry more in safari parks. Last time a bison charged the car in front of us and the rangers had to contain it with their trucks!

[dejarderoncar]

when I see kids behaving as in that video, with no parents or teachers apparently stopping or educating them them, I wish animals would escape (from their prisons) more often....

[limitedperiodonly]

I was at London Zoo when a man was taunting a monkey. People were asking him to stop but he wouldn't.

The monkey swung on his arms and directed a stream of piss with deadly aim. It was fucking great. I bet that monkey has done that trick so many times.

[limitedperiodonly]

There are pelicans in a park near me and they have been known to scoop up pigeons unwise enough to stray too close.