Audubon Zoo: Jaguar escapes enclosure in New Orleans zoo, kills six animals, injures three.
A male jaguar somehow managed to slip out of its habitat at the Audubon Zoo in New Orleans early Saturday morning, killing six animals and injuring three others. The three-year-old jaguar, Valerio, escaped at around 7:20 a.m. and it took almost an hour before the zoo’s veterinarian staff managed to sedate him and return him back to his quarters at around 8:15 a.m. By the time he had been recaptured, Valiero had killed four alpaca, one emu, and one fox. He also injured another alpaca and two foxes.
It is far from clear how Valerio managed to escape and why it took authorities so long to get him back in his enclosure. In a statement, the zoo said that initial inspections suggest “the roof of the habitat was compromised.” The Audubon Zoo remained closed on Saturday but will reopen Sunday although the jaguar exhibit will remain closed. Valerio is kept with another jaguar who is 21 years old in a “Jaguar Jungle” exhibit. “In over a 100-year period, we’ve never had any incident like this,” Ron Forman, the president and CEO of Audubon Nature Institute, said at press conference on Saturday. “This is by far the biggest tragedy we’ve had.”
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— Audubon Institute (@AudubonNature) July 14, 2018
The zoo said it would launch an investigation to figure out what happened but this isn’t the first time a jaguar escapes from this particular facility. In 2001, a jaguar cub named Mulac escaped its enclosure but it took only 10 minutes for him to be brought down with a tranquilizer dart and placed back in his enclosure before he had a chance to hurt any other animals.
Advertisement Advertisement AdvertisementThe zoo immediately dismissed the idea of euthanizing Valerio because he didn’t act out of the ordinary for a jaguar. “He was doing what jaguars do. His behavior wasn’t out of the ordinary for that kind of animal. Just a normal jaguar as far as we’re concerned,” said Joe Hamilton, vice president and general curator at the zoo. The zoo’s doctor, Frank Burks, explained that “it was most likely a territorial situation.”
In a Facebook post earlier this year, the Audubon Zoo described Valerio as “incredibly smart” and said his care staff described him as a “big lovable goofball.” He was born at San Diego Zoo in March 2015 and was moved to Audubon Zoo in October 2017.
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