By: Ariel Brittain
Whether the penguin exhibit gives you a chill or the king of the jungle evokes a thrill, going to the zoo is a quintessential and oh-so-enjoyable part of childhood. But some of these uncanny zoo accidents might just have you running like a gazelle.
Buttery Fingers: In Cleveland, OH, a 2-year-old took a terrifying fall after his mother dropped him almost 10 feet into the cheetah exhibit at a local zoo. The little boy was removed from the pit just before fire officials arrived. He was then taken to the hospital in stable condition. Eyewitnesses to the incident sadly proclaim that the 2-year-old was dangled above the pit. The Cleveland Metroparks, an organization managing Cleveland’s parks, zoos and golf courses, has planned to support child endangerment charges against the mother and father of the child. The family has yet to be identified. The cheetahs, however, were reported not to have even approached the child or his rescuers during the accident. Curiosity never took over these furry felines.
Crazy Killer Whale: The world’s largest whale in captivity is an over 12,000 pound killer whale named Tilikum Tilikum is a performing whale for Seaworld and even Sealand. In 1983, he was captured near the coast of Iceland, and then sent to Sealand in British Columbia, Canada. In 1991, a woman named Keltie Byrne, an amateur trainer for the whales, slipped and fell into the tank containing Tilikum and two other whales. Her body was found and officers claim that the whales simply ‘played around’ with her until she drowned. Tilikum was then transferred to Seaworld Orlando, where he seemed to be the picture-perfect whale. This all changed, and about eight years later another incident occurred. On July 6, 1999, a guest to Seaworld named Daniel Dukes trespassed into the orca tank late at night and his battered corpse was found the next day. Tilikum’s final, or most recent attack, was on February 24. 2010, when a trainer named Dawn Brancheau was dragged into the water by Tilikum while training him. Other trainers nearby tried to move the whale to another area and free Brancheau, but she unfortunately drowned and suffered major blunt force trauma to her spine and other bones. Tilikum, on the other hand (or should I say fin) still performs to this day.
Mammal Massacre: A man named Terry Thompson wasn’t your normal 61-year-old. He had a love for anything and everything exotic, which explains his private menagerie full of exotic animals in his Zanesville, OH, residence. Then things took a turn for the worse, and on October 18, 2011, he let the animals loose and shot himself in the head. Officers arrived to find chaos. Thompson’s body was being eaten by a white tiger and the animals were running rampant through the neighborhood. The chaos climaxed when officers were forced to shoot all 50 animals. After the shoot out, two wolves, two grizzly bears, three mountain lions, six black bears, seventeen lions, and two monkeys lay dead all over the property and nearby streets. The animals were buried in a massive grave on Thompson’s property, where they set a reminder for even the most cautious of critter-lovers.
Worst Christmas Present EVER: He sees you when you’re sleeping, he knows when you’re awake, he knows when you’re being mauled by tigers- or not? On a snowy Christmas morning in 2007, Tatiana, a 350-pound tiger, escaped her habitat and injured two people and killed17-year-old Carlos Sousa Jr. Authorities were stumped at how the tiger jumped a 20-foot wall and almost 15-foot moat into the public zoo area. The tiger was shockingly the only one of the five tigers in the exhibit to escape. Then, when authorities arrived, they found the tiger simply sitting by one of the injured parties. The tiger advanced towards the police and they opened fire, killing her. The year before, Tatiana had also committed a Christmastime horror when she reached through the enclosure’s fence and tore flesh off a zoo keeper during feeding time. Someone must have been naughty that year.
So when you next embark on your fabulous journey to the zoo, make sure to hold your siblings away from the railing, avoid the whale and tiger enclosures and keep your pets at home. Or else you’ll be taking a pit stop at the hospital.
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