By BJ Austin, KERA News
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/kera/local-kera-885765.mp3
Dallas, TX –
The Dallas Zoo's Major Incident Review Committee will decide if policies and procedures need to be changed after a gorilla escaped Saturday. KERA's BJ Austin a zookeeper has been suspended, and could be fired.
Gregg Hudson is director of the Dallas Zoo.
Hudson: There was no structural failure. There was no exhibit failure. There was no Olympian leap that this animal made to get out of the exhibit. This was plain and simple a human error.
Hudson says the zookeeper failed to follow several procedures. The key mistake was leaving a door open while retrieving a squeegee - part of cleaning equipment. That's when 19 year old Tufani, a 180 pound female gorilla zipped out and into a larger, indoor gorilla "bedroom" area.
Lynn Kramer, the Zoo's deputy director of animal sciences, says she didn't like it.
Kramer: The animal was pretty nervous, walking around on top of this bedroom, 25 feet up. She wanted to get back in with her companion and was looking for a way to do that.
Tufani was tranquilized, and back with her companion within a couple of hours. Zoo Director Gregg Hudson says significant changes to the gorilla habitat, and emergency training put in place after the 2004 escape of Jabari helped control this incident. Six years ago, Jabari leaped the fence of the habitat and injured three zoo goers before he was shot and killed by Dallas police.