Posted on 01/02/2019 12:38:21 PM PST by ColdOne
(CNN)A 2-year-old girl remains in the hospital a day after she was injured at a Florida zoo during a private rhino encounter experience, zoo officials and her family said. The toddler and her family were taking part Tuesday in a close-up experience with white rhinos at the Brevard Zoo in Melbourne, Florida, when the girl came into contact with the animals. The family of three was given access to feel and brush the rhinos while supervised by two zookeepers in an area of the zoo where they were separated from the animals only by steel posts. The toddler wedged through the posts and got into the rhinos' yard, said Andrea Hill, the zoo's marketing and communications director.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
Surely Florida is not such a sissy state that there was no one armed nearby who had the balls to jump in and help th kid?
A bullet between two he beasts eyes would have saved this kid from what may have been death
LOL..that is funny!
....other accounts of this story is more horrifying than CNNs....seem the tot fell 10 into the pit when she slide through the bars....CNN puff this story for some reason
Black rhinos make the Big Five list of most dangerous African game animals - mainly because they are nervous and charge when surprised. Their vision is so bad, they are nearly blind. The Black Rhinos eat bushes, so you risk coming upon them unexpectedly at close range among bushes, and startle them.
The wide mouth (the Dutch “wijd” for wide, was Anglicized as “white) grazes grass out in the open. They are not really mean - just huge and skittish.
Sorry.
Call Barack Obama. He has a well-used one for give-away.
I side with the rhino. This is my kind of rhino.
Hippos are ornery killers. They will kill people just for crossing their path. They will often go out of their way to kill someone.
Here comes lawsuits from parents who don’t control
their snot-nosed kid.
A while back, a couple of friends and I went to Six Flags Wild Safari in central Jersey and one of the animals wandering freely was a rhino. I said to my friends, "Lads. We need to get a move on. That's a rhino over there. I've seen Hatari and this Subaru ain't no jeep."
The toddler wedged through the posts and got into the rhinos' yard . . . .
The posts are roughly 11 inches apart. . .
As two female rhinos approached the toddler, the snout of one made contact with the child and she got bumped, Hill said.
The child's father, who was holding on to her throughout the incident, quickly pulled her out and carried her to the front office, the zoo said. The girl was taken to a pediatric hospital. Details of the child's injuries or condition were not immediately known.
If the child was being held by the hand, it's unlikely the tot got fully into the rhino's yard.
Sounds like the little one somehow wiggled halfway thru the steel posts and was crushed against one of them by the rhino's inquisitive snout--with two tons of meat behind it.
You're not really familiar with firearms or large African land mammals, are you?
Shoot it between the eyes? With what? Your CCW snub nose?
Have you ever looked at a rhino skull?
Doesn’t everyone carry a Desert Eagle 50 A&E?
couple or 3 .38 Specials from a short barrel...NG
I know when I lived in Florida, my CCW of choice was a .458 win mag revolver because, in Florida, one never knows when they'll need to be a hero and rescue toddlers from rhinos at the zoo.
Triple P syndrome. The second and third are ‘Poor Parenting’.
“The rhinos’ welfare “was never compromised and they will not be ‘punished’ in any way,” “
BAD RHINO! GO TO YOUR ROOM!
Looks like you didn't read the excerpt. These were WHITE rhinos.
I have membership in the Brevard County Zoo, and have done the Rhino encounter there. The visitors are separated from the animal by a series of posts set a little less than a foot apart, and higher than head height. The type you would use to support a chain link fence, however they seemed to me to be well reinforced. The rhinos are fairly docile animals in this setting, and share the enclosure with some Zebras. The most activity I’ve seen from either of them, was one Spring when one of them was trying to get the other one to give him a piggy back ride. The rhinos are trained to come to the encounter area where they are checked over and given any special treatment needed by the keeper. You can pet them (through the bars) although they don’t really seem to notice, or use the stiff bristled brush provided, which the do notice and seem to enjoy.
I suspect what happened was that the 2 year old was not being supervised and slipped through the bars. I think the big guy was just curious about the new critter that was in his enclosure. I suspect that the next time I go to the Brevard Zoo there will be a section of chain-link across the bars, at about child height. I also plan to take my Granddaughter to see the rhinos, but she will be well SUPERVISED
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.