Posted on 09/09/2011 12:02:24 PM PDT by Virginia Ridgerunner
Two bison trapped at a Pennsyvania zoo were shot to spare them from drowning in rapidly rising floodwaters.
Officials at Hersheypark's ZooAmerica defended the decision as the most humane choice, though critics blasted it. The one-ton animals were trapped in their pen as waters surged from Tropical Storm Lee. Zookeepers could not evacuate them, though they managed to save other animals.
"Unfortunately, no one could anticipate a weather event that went from inches of rain to feet of flooding in a matter of a few short minutes," the zoo said in its statement. "Faced with the prospect of watching the extended suffering of the bison and their eventual death due to drowning, the zoo staff chose the most humane path possible and euthanized the bison."
(Excerpt) Read more at nbcphiladelphia.com ...
Open gates, release bison?
Very sad. I always assumed there was an exit plan for zoo animals in cases of emergency.
Better that they were shot than to have drowned.
You would think, especially since they are good swimmers.
One word: liability.
So, out of hundreds of animals, they saved all but two?
I would think that’s pretty good, considering it was a flash flood.
Having made the unpleasant choice to “put down” animals I am attached to, I doubt this was something they wanted to do, but felt compelled to do to prevent the bison from suffering.
Swimming in flood waters, isn’t like swimming in a pretty pond, or lazy river.
Or toss something into the enclosure upon which the bison could climb and stand? Then pump it out as soon as possible.
Doesn’t seem to specify what happened to other animals. Maybe they figured getting new bison was cheaper than trying to get the old bison out of danger, while that wouldn’t apply to more exotic beasts like zebras. They really needed a cowboy, literally.
Doesn’t seem to specify what happened to other animals — well, all the other animals, at least. Maybe some perished in the waters.
“We had a plan and we put it in effect, but the circumstances were beyond anything that we had ever seen,” said Mindy Bianca, public relations director for Hershey Entertainment & Resorts Co.
She said all the zoo’s other animals were accounted for.”
Well I hope they were all accounted for alive. Tropical birds might not care for this kind of weather.
Bison can’t swim?
Stupid zoo keepers..............
I’m glad the bison at South Park here in Pittsburgh are way up at the top of a hill
Me too.
:(
If they had simply roped them and kept their heads above water for a while, maybe they’d have made it.
They would have died of exhaustion if they’d been forced to swim constantly to stay above water.
I would think the above would have been worth a shot, at least.
I’ve seen horse/cow/deer rescues that involved simply keeping their heads above water [or mud] until they could be extracted work.
I'm guessing the problem was the pen they were in had little or no drainage-- a p*ss poor design from the get go. It looks to me like they are in a giant bowl-shaped pen, a fairly common zoo design since these beasts are capable of jumping or trampling down all but the highest and strongest fences. But they require drainage-- even if it is a culvert going outside the bowl.
For whatever reason, possibly fear of some doofus trying to crawl into the culvert to get a closer look, they failed to follow proper design protocol and created a flooding death trap for the bison.
They would have at least had a fighting chance.
They could have opened a hole in the fence and let them roam until the flood was over. They could have found their own high ground and probably would have survived......
Poor Bison,, NEVER get a freakin’ break. Always betting the short end of the stick.
I vote for opening the gate. Lets ‘em takes they chances. Maybe they make it,, maybe no.
They could have found their own high ground and probably would have survived......
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Sort of like Vietnam.
“We had to destroy the village to save it”.
Typical ‘bureaucratic’ logic (or lack of).
Probably but I reckon it was just “too much trouble”.
There’s a bison farm near here and having relied on humans for so long, they’re not like their potentially dangerous “wild” kin at all.
They’re pretty much just big, fat lazy ol’ glorified cows.
The zoo will no doubt replace them cheaply and that will be that.
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