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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

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

126 replies

climbingquickly · 01/05/2015 17:23

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?

OP posts:
Bunbaker · 01/05/2015 20:55

"At our local zoo they now have polar bears."

Are you referring to Yorkshire Wildlife Park by any chance?

VivaLeBeaver · 01/05/2015 21:02

bunbaker, yes yorkshire wildlife park.

farmerswifey · 01/05/2015 21:43

Our local "Zoo" scares the hell out of me. In the past few years, a Leopard was almost free to ravage the public after the dippy zoo owner forgot to close the doors on the cage. They have also misplaced eight adult meerkats and had a family of Eurasian Beavers escape. Scarily, the same couple have recently become the proud owners of two lions!

ArcheryAnnie · 01/05/2015 21:44

I'm camping in the grounds of a zoo on holiday this year! Hadn't thought of this! (But I will now...) I think the scariest thing they have there are gorillas and spectacled bears.

Mind you, at the Kodiak Grizzly enclosure at Toronto Zoo, I do find myself calculating how many other tourists are between me and the bears, and whether I could climb into the infinitely safer wolf enclosure in time....

Penguito · 01/05/2015 21:59

One year the circus came to my town and the elephant escaped. The tent was in a field beside the dual carriageway, and the elephant ran down the dual carriageway the wrong way! Imagine driving down and seeing it running towards you Shock

Painfulbits · 01/05/2015 22:02

I kind of hope that an animal does escape. It might make less people go to zoos...

Figster · 01/05/2015 22:06

Last year I went to a small wildlife park we turned a corner and there was a meerkat sat on the path staring at us my 18mo ds was terrified Grin

Been to paignton zoo today at 3 he proclaimed he was going to swim to the orangutan island and swim overnight instructing us to pick him up tomorrow he'd be fine. Grin

littlebillie · 01/05/2015 22:50

My Grandmother was notoriously hated by animals in general though she loved them. Apart from being bitten by her cat on daily basis. She got chased by penguins at Edinburgh zoo in the late 1950s then on a trip to chester zoo an elephant swished straw through the urine trough and threw it all over her. Thinking about it I got pissed on at the circus by a lion perhaps it runs in the family.

QOD · 01/05/2015 23:22

I live by a zoo and hear the Lions n tigers roaring allllll the time. The Wolves were far far worse, terrifying ... But they moved the enclosure and not heard them in years

We've had small cats escape and an animal that is not indigenous to the UK on our roof , never found out wtf it was

If I go fir a walk I see bison and giraffes etc

OrlandoWoolf · 01/05/2015 23:25

You don't live at 64 Zoo Lane do you Grin

ImpatientGriselda2 · 01/05/2015 23:41

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!
Onceencountered a loose tiger at a safari park in very similar circumstances. It was a long time ago. So I suppose I get a bit nervous instinctually, but concentrate on the unlikelihood of it happening in general, or to the same person again - and that everyone was fine.

CandyClouds81 · 02/05/2015 00:34

You should be worried. Those poor animals trapped in enclosures will be driven mental with boredom. There is probably nothing they want more than to escape and rip a human to pieces. And to be fair, anyone visiting a 'zoo' deserves a mauling.

Lweji · 02/05/2015 00:40

We've had small cats escape and an animal that is not indigenous to the UK on our roof , never found out wtf it was

Well, was it a bird, mammal, reptile?

Lweji · 02/05/2015 00:43

It's more likely that some idiot jumps into an enclosure, or dangles a baby and drops it than an animal escaping, based on recent news.

Patsyandeddie · 02/05/2015 00:45

FFS Grow up, there is an element of risk crossing the road, relax and enjoy yourself and stop worrying, what will be will be!!

custardismyhamster · 02/05/2015 00:46

My mum visited a zoo as a child, she was happily eating an apple watching the giraffes. Until one leaned over a fence and nicked the apple out of bed hand Grin

ImpatientGriselda2 · 02/05/2015 01:02

Candy I wasn't keen on zoos as a teenager, but that was with the rosy underlying assumption that conditions would have substantially improved for endangered species in the wild by now. They haven't though, so there's a six and two threes situation WRT ethics of conservation vs captivity. It's not perfect but conditions in most Western zoos are far better than they used to be when we were kids, and there is a purpose to them beyond gawping.

geekymommy · 02/05/2015 01:18

Stay sober at the zoo, don't taunt the animals, don't try to touch them, don't try to get anywhere you obviously aren't supposed to go, and make sure your kids follow the same rules. In the vast majority of incidents where a zoo animal injured or killed someone, the human victim was breaking at least one of these rules.

geekymommy · 02/05/2015 01:20

Oh, and if a zoo employee tells you to stop doing something, stop doing whatever it is.

sashh · 02/05/2015 06:13

deredactie.be/cm/vrtnieuws.english/News/1.2307575

Zebras on the lose in Brussles

wanderings · 02/05/2015 06:44

Don't read too much Roald Dahl before going near a zoo. "James's parents were eaten by an angry rhinoceros which had escaped from London Zoo". Not only might zoo animals escape, they might eat those funny little green things and grow into grasshoppers as large as a large dog, or centipedes with a whopping forty-two boots.

Although, I do remember this happening at a zoo: a lion in a raised enclosure suddenly turned his back on the crowd and sprayed them liberally with urine! There were screams, and pushchairs were yanked backwards by horrified parents.

QOD · 02/05/2015 11:45

lweji mammal. Had big eyes with the vertical type pupil. About 10 times the size if a squirrel without the poofy tale. Grey. Jumped off the roof onto a tree and gone.
Neighbour and I stood there going Shock Shock
Googled and checked books and asked zoo. Nuffin

hackmum · 02/05/2015 12:33

This has just reminded me - last week DP and I were taking the dog for a walk in the park. We walked past two geese who were tending a lovely little batch of fluffy goslings, and one of the geese went for DP big-time. It was a bit scary and a bit funny too. Instead of running away (as I did) he tried to shoo it off, which made it more angry. It did actually whack him quite hard with its wing.

Lweji · 02/05/2015 12:41

Something like this? An aye aye.

Big eyes are usually in nocturnal animals.

As for rhinos, they don't eat people. They are vegetarian. But they may still kill you.

To worry about lions and other dangerous animals escaping at the zoo?
Lweji · 02/05/2015 12:41

Or a loris?

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