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Wolves attack twice at zoo

New barriers to keep visitors away from pen after bizarre behavior

By Kimberly Ashton
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
April 18th, 2007 issue

VLADIMÍR WEISS/THE PRAGUE POST
Prague Zoo's Eurasian wolves, shown at feeding time, have been acting strangely recently, mauling a puppy, a woman and a small boy.
Twice last week wolves at Prague Zoo attacked visitors.
On Easter Sunday, a puppy jumped against the fence of the wolf enclosure, which holds six Eurasian wolves, and was bitten and held. A woman stuck her hand through the fence to try to free him. The dog was killed, while the woman’s hand was badly lacerated.
VLADIMÍR WEISS/THE PRAGUE POST
The zoo's director says visitors are responsible if they leave the path.
In the second incident April 12, the wolves attacked a small boy who had approached the fence.
The incidents raise questions about whether the enclosure is safe and how much responsibility visitors bear for their own safety.
“It’s serious for us,” Zoo Director Petr Fejk said. “It’s now absolutely necessary to change the barriers.” The barriers were modified April 13, a day after the boy was attacked.
The wolves have been at the zoo, behind the same barriers, for six years without any problem, he said. “I don’t know what, but something is wrong. Something has changed in the behavior of our wolves,” Fejk said.
Two attacks
Zoo officials say they don’t know exactly what happened April 12, but somehow the 5-year-old boy was attacked without serious injury resulting.
The boy was taken to Fakultní nemocnice Na Bulovce hospital in Prague 8. Hospital official Petr Mach said the boy’s parents do not wish to release any information about his condition. The zoo’s emergency personnel attended the boy after the incident.
More details were available about the Easter Sunday attack. By all accounts, what happened at Prague Zoo that day was horrific.
Catherine Klosson, 14, was walking her black cocker-spaniel puppy, Chance, on a leash near the wolf enclosure when Chance jumped up on the chain-link fence, his front paws resting in the openings.
“Chance, being friendly and gullible, jumped on the fence because he thought they were other dogs,” Catherine said.
The wolves immediately set upon the 4-month-old puppy, clamping down on his paws. Catherine pulled back on his collar in an attempt to free him. Tetiana Kagui, an adult family friend who was with Catherine, stuck her hand through the fence to try to loosen the wolves’ hold, and they attacked her, too.
Moments later, Chance was dead, Kagui’s hand was slashed (requiring 20 stitches) and Catherine was hysterical.
Kraig Klosson, Catherine’s father, forces back tears as he talks about the ordeal and mentions that she is now seeing a psychiatrist to cope with the trauma.
Klosson is upset that the zoo didn’t have better barriers. “It could’ve been a little kid breaking loose from its mother’s hand,” he said.
He is especially angry at the harsh reaction his daughter and Kagui, her friend’s mother, got from zoo officials on the scene. “It was atrocious behavior on their part,” he said.
The officials, Catherine said, berated them, asking them why they went close to the enclosure. No one offered comfort or help, they said.
Zoo officials don’t deny they were upset.  “The keepers were very angry because it was an absolutely crazy situation,” Fejk said.
Curator Jaroslav Šimek was on duty that day and says the scene was chaotic but that the zoo acted appropriately.
“I think we did everything that was necessary,” he said.
 
New barriers
Fejk said the wolves’ behavior had changed since the April 8 attack, that the pack was nervous. He doesn’t know why, but said it is possible one of the females is pregnant.
“For six years, our wolves hated contact with people,” he said, adding that they are normally afraid of someone near the fence and would go to the other side of the enclosure when the keeper was inside.
That Thursday, the zoo had its regular barrier up: a short wooden fence separating the walking path and the fenced enclosure, which is about 3 meters (9.8 feet) from the path. Friday morning, after the boy was attacked, they erected more barriers and Fejk said they will ensure it is not possible to put even a finger through.
Fejk said that the zoo currently “doesn’t have 100 percent barriers,” but that visitors are responsible if they leave the walking path.
Klosson says the zoo must take precautions. “People are responsible for their own actions, but the zoo could do more. Things will happen; kids will run away from their mommies.”
At the Berlin Zoo, wolves and visitors are kept apart by a moat that separates the wolves from the fence.
But keeping visitors and animals apart in all situations is a very difficult thing to do, according to Dag Encke, director of the Nuremberg Zoo. That zoo’s setup for the wolves is similar to Prague’s.
“You can’t really make everything so secure and safe that it’s impossible to get hurt by an animal. Otherwise you would have Alcatraz.”
— Naďa Černá contributed to this report.

Kimberly Ashton can be reached at kashton@praguepost.com


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