3 Chimpanzees Shot Dead After Zoo Escape

Swedish zoo warned area residents to stay inside with doors, windows locked
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Dec 15, 2022 7:58 AM CST
3 Chimpanzees Shot Dead After Zoo Escape
A chimpanzee looks out of his enclosure at Zoo Miami.   (AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee, File)

Five chimpanzees escaped from a zoo enclosure in Sweden and it did not end well for four of them. Authorities say four of the animals were shot, three of them fatally, while the fifth made its own way back to the enclosure, joining three other chimpanzees that didn't leave, the Guardian reports. The animals were on the loose for several hours before police tracked them down using drones. "This whole situation is tragic in every possible way," Annika Troselius, a press officer for the Furuviksparken zoo, told Swedish media, per the Local. "It shouldn’t happen. We need to take full responsibility and investigate this,”

Troselius said an earlier statement that police marksmen were called in because there was a shortage of tranquilizer was a miscommunication. "There’s tranquilizer in the park but it was never an alternative to use it," she said. "Chimpanzees are high-risk animals and if there is a danger to human life, the only alternative is to euthanize them, according to the risk group and experts." The zoo is part of an amusement park around 100 miles north of Stockholm. After the escape, the park, which is closed for the season, warned area residents to stay inside with doors and windows locked. The zoo, which is the only primate research station in the Nordic countries, said it doesn't know how the escape happened. "Of course we will investigate this so that it can never happen again," Troselius said. (More escaped animal stories.)

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