Top 20 wild animals escaped from the zoo
Summary
Top 20 wild animals escaped from the zoo. A zoo is a wonderful place with a lot of learning. Sometimes, the animals are bored of captivity and make a daring escape; other times, gaps in their fences allow them to step-free. Here […]
Top 20 wild animals escaped from the zoo. A zoo is a wonderful place with a lot of learning. Sometimes, the animals are bored of captivity and make a daring escape; other times, gaps in their fences allow them to step-free. Here we are going to present the top 20 wild animals escaped from the zoo.
Video: Top 20 wild animals escaped from the zoo
337 Penguin
In the city of Tokyo, a penguin named “337” escaped from the popular sea life park by wriggling through a hole in his enclosure. He was missing for almost two months, and zookeepers were finally starting to fear the worst.
Amazingly, they had nothing to fear: 337 was spotted two months later and returned to the sea life park. When his doctors checked him out, they were floored to find that he was in perfect health. Apparently, city life agreed with the little guy!
Red Panda
When Rusty the red panda was just 11 months old, he was welcomed to the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. One night, after a heavy rain weighed down the trees in his enclosure, he was able to escape.
Rusty remained on the loose for only a couple of days. He was found when someone posted a sighting of the red panda with a passion for rule-breaking on Twitter. He had only traveled one mile after his great escape from the zoo.
Video: Top 20 wild animals escaped from the zoo
Cat
When zookeepers in Florida were working to repair a lion enclosure that was damaged by heavy rains, a two-year-old lion named Nala used the opportunity to slip out and enjoy some time away from her zoo home.
But, being a cat, it wasn’t long before Nala returned and tried to get in her enclosure! Unfortunately, she was scared off by the approaching zookeepers. Eventually, using a helicopter, they spotted her, tranquilized her, and returned her to her home.
Monkey
Admittedly, there are conflicting reports on this story even in reputable newspapers, but the basic facts go something like this: Led by a rhesus monkey named Capone, more than 150 rhesus monkeys escaped a Long Island Zoo for several days in 1935.
Most reports agree that the monkeys’ keeper was going about his normal cleaning duties when the monkeys made their move. He placed a board across the moat that spanned the rhesus monkeys’ island and went to work. Meanwhile, the enterprising rhesus monkeys simply walked across the board to freedom.
African Flamingo
In 2005, an African flamingo made a break from a zoo in Kansas. Though a search was organized to find the little guy, it was to no avail; the flamingo had gone missing. Until eight years later, that is, when bird watcher Neil Hayward spotted the flamingo 650 miles away on Texas’s Gulf Coast.
Apparently, the flamingo had migrated to the ocean and found himself a partner who’d escaped from a Mexican nature reserve years earlier. When notified of their bird’s existence, the Kansas Zoo wished the flamingo luck and stated they’d allow the bird to continue living in the wild.
Tiger
In 2013, a wild tiger sauntered happily out of the forest and onto the grounds of India’s Nandanknan Zoo. Rationalizing the tiger had shown up to try and get with the zoo’s captive female, zookeepers took a chance and threw open the door to the enclosure. The male tiger happily wandered into the tiger enclosure and promptly made himself at home.
For the next several weeks, the tiger seemed happy to eat, nap, pace, and, of course, have sex. Then, as nonchalantly as he arrived, he escaped, scaling a two-story security wall in order to make his escape. To this day, the tiger remains at large.
Bear
Early in the morning on June 1, 2018, several animals, including two lions, two tigers, a bear, and a jaguar, were reported as escaping from the Eifel Zoo in western Germany. An intense thunderstorm caused flooding in the animals’ enclosures, and officials initially believed all the animals busted out of their pens.
Using a drone, authorities were able to locate all of the animals, most of which were actually still safely contained in the zoo. The only animal to actually escape was the bear, and officials shot him after spotting him on one of the zoo’s public paths.
Cobra
For a period of six days in 2011, the Bronx Zoo’s Egyptian cobra slipped its confines and ignited a citywide manhunt. Of course, the reptile’s keepers insisted the cobra hadn’t gone far the entire time it was on the lam. It turns out they were right, as the 20-inch-long cobra was found just a few hundred feet from her enclosure, safe and sound.
As it happened, though, the snake’s escape was a big topic of conversation among New Yorkers.
Llamas
One Friday afternoon in 2015, a pair of llamas escaped a show-and-tell session and led pursuers on a two-hour chase through the crowded afternoon streets of Sun City, AZ. The llamas, who belonged to a rancher but were routinely brought places as therapy llamas, set off a social media firestorm when their escape was caught via helicopter like a high-speed police pursuit.
A series of keepers, police officers, animal control professionals, and even a few random passersby got in on the chase, attempting to capture both llamas as they darted through traffic and ran amok through the suburb. Ultimately, it was a local cowboy who managed to end the pursuit by using his lasso to wrangle the final escaped llama.
Hippo
When torrents of rain flooded the capital of the country, Georgia, the mud softened and the water levels rose, unleashing chaos at the country’s zoo. The zoo reported that tigers, bears, wolves, and lions, among other animals, had escaped their pens.
While some—like a massive hippo—were able to be tranquilized as they roamed through the urban setting, others, including at least one lion, were found dead before they could be returned. The animals remained at large for several days as Georgia struggled to stem the loss of human life before worrying about a bear climbing up someone’s air conditioner.
Wolf
In 1979, the Los Angeles Zoo managed to lose a half-grown wolf pup named Virginia, who escaped three times before ultimately disappearing into the wilderness.
In spite of the commonly held belief that wolves can’t climb trees, Virginia the timber wolf did exactly that. By shimmying up a tree trunk and then walking out onto a thick tree branch, Virginia was able to span the gap between her enclosure and freedom. She was never recaptured.
Raccoon
Officials at the Tropiquaria Zoo in Somerset, England, had thought that their raccoon was happy enough with life, showing no particular desire to run away, but it turned out not to be the case.
After a few days of heavy rains and flooding in the area earlier this year, one of the captive raccoons, a female named Missy, seized upon the opportunity to take a break for freedom. With the normally hardened soil around the perimeter softened in the downpour, the clever creature was able to dig a hole big enough to slip through while no one was watching, escaping into the night.
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Dolphin
When fishermen off the coast of South Korea found that they had accidentally snared a dolphin in their nets back in 2009, instead of doing the right thing and letting it go, they decided to cash in on their catch, illegally selling the animal to a local aquarium.
For the next four years, the 10-year-old female dolphin, named Sampal, was forced to perform tricks in a dolphin show there, kept in a small pool that bore no resemblance to the open ocean where she had lived among her pod.
Kangaroo
Sometimes, escaping captivity takes a team effort, as in the case of one kangaroo in Germany who escaped a wildlife zoo park with the help of interspecies collaboration.
Officials at the park say the animal was able to make a break for freedom by slipping through holes in two separate barricades that were keeping it in. Evidently, a fox had dug a passageway underneath the kangaroo’s enclosure fence large enough for it to squeeze through, but that only got the animal so far.
Orangutan
No discussion of impressive zoo escapes would be complete without mention of the most famous animal escape artist in history. In the 1980s, a Bornean orangutan named Ken Allen held captive at the San Diego Zoo became known around the world for his repeated break-outs in enclosures thought to be impossible to outsmart.
In the summer of 1985, the clever primate somehow managed to set himself free on three separate occasions, taking the opportunity to stroll peacefully around the zoo. Ken was so clever, he even demonstrated to other orangutans how to get out by using a tree branch as a crowbar to pop open the gates to their enclosures too.
Eagle
In 1965, a golden eagle named Goldie escaped from the Regent’s Park Zoo in London. After five years of living at the zoo, Goldie escaped while the cage was being cleaned.
Goldie was caught by the deputy headkeeper, who lured the eagle with a dead rabbit tied to a rope. He quietly walked up to the bird and caught it with his bare hands. Goldie was declared unhurt and returned to the London zoo, where visitor numbers doubled during the following days.
Takin
In May 2018, 363-kilogram takin rammed its way out of a Rhode Island zoo. The beast ran around for an hour before it was captured and sedated. Two employees sustained minor injuries, which were treated on the scene.
The takin escaped early in the morning before the zoo opened for visitors. A veterinary team approaching to carry out a routine hoof procedure appeared to have caused the incident. The animal charged at reinforced doors multiple times until it successfully broke out of its enclosure and roamed the facility’s grounds.
Crocodile
At the beginning of 2017, no fewer than 10 crocodiles found their way out of a zoo after Southern Thailand was hit by a flood. Some of the crocodiles measured up to 5 meters long. Reports noted that all of the deer and rare bird species had also escaped.
The flood affected nearly one million people, leaving thousands of villages’ partially submerged and at least 18 people dead. Armed forces assisted with providing shelter, distributing emergency aid, and evacuating flood victims. Two helicopters were also used to deliver food to people trapped inside their homes.
Gorilla
Named Kumbuka escaped through an open cage door at the London Zoo in 2016. The zoo refused to reveal further information about the incident but noted that the gorilla did not smash any glass or force its way out of the enclosure.
Despite the description of Kumbuka as a “gentle giant,” visitors were ordered to take cover in buildings when the 184-kilogram ape escaped. Armed police got involved in finding and tranquilizing the gorilla.
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Elephant
Kelly, the 3,810-kilogram Asian elephant, escaped from the circus and went to munch on some nearby plants. Her stroll down the block was followed by shocked neighborhood screams.
It turns out that Kelly’s escape was assisted by Isla, another elephant. Isla is intrigued by anything shiny, including the nuts and bolts that held together their enclosure. The elephant released several bolts secured to a latch hinge, giving Kelly a chance to escape.
Which one do you think is the smartest escape? Let us know in the comment section.