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In Defense of Animals Calls for Improved Equipment and Safety Procedures in the Wake of a Baby Gorilla’s Death at the San Francisco Zoo

In Defense of Animals Calls for Improved Equipment and Safety Procedures in the Wake of a Baby Gorilla’s Death at the San Francisco Zoo

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Eric Phelps, (503) 664-0001, eric@idausa.org

In Defense of Animals Calls for Improved Equipment
and Safety Procedures 
in the Wake of a
Baby Gorilla’s Death at the San Francisco Zoo

San Rafael, Calif. (November 17, 2014) – In Defense of Animals (IDA), an international animal protection organization based in San Rafael, California, is calling on the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) to mandate equipment improvements, updates, and improved safety procedures in the wake of a baby gorilla that was crushed to death at the San Francisco Zoo on Friday evening, November 7.

Zookeepers at the San Francisco Zoo were moving a group of endangered western lowland gorillas into their nighttime enclosure when Kabibe, the zoo’s youngest gorilla, turned around to go back outside. She was caught by the closing hydraulic door in her enclosure and crushed to death.

Sadly, this isn’t the first instance of an animal being crushed to death by a hydraulic door at a zoo. In recent years, at least two animals, a spider monkey and a capybara, were crushed to death in separate incidents by hydraulic doors at the Calgary Zoo in Canada. Just two weeks ago, a similar pneumatic door trapped a pregnant orca at SeaWorld San Diego. (http://on.fb.me/1tVM3lc)

“Automatic doors are inherently dangerous, as we have unfortunately seen. If a zoo doesn’t have the resources or sense to update and monitor their hydraulic doors, they should not be used. This accident at San Francisco Zoo is a prime example given the zoo’s history of having inadequate and outdated facilities,” said Dr. Elliot Katz, founder and president emeritus of In Defense of Animals. He added, “Elevators all over the world, and even $129 garage doors these days, are equipped with automatic shut-offs in the event that a child, animal, or some other obstruction gets in the way of the door closing. Why do doors at zoos not have this same basic technology? It now seems that our assertions were correct, according to the latest information released by the zoo.” Indeed the findings of an internal audit by gorilla expert, Dr. Terry Maple, released last Friday found that the gorilla enclosure at the zoo is “outdated and unsafe.”

IDA will be calling on the AZA to mandate that all of its accredited zoos and aquariums improve safety procedures, including having two zoo personnel always present when working hydraulic or pneumatic doors. And to retrofit automatic shut-off or reversal equipment to existing doors and gates, like those found in elevator and garage doors, in order to prevent tragedies like what happened to Kabibe from ever happening again.

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