Four chimpanzees shot dead after escaping from zoo enclosure in Sweden | The world | News
Four chimpanzees have been shot dead after escaping from their zoo enclosure into an amusement park. The animals escaped at lunchtime today from the chimpanzee house at Furuvik Zoo, which is part of an amusement park near Gävle, about 16 miles north of Stockholm in Sweden.
Another chimpanzee also escaped but made his own back into the enclosure.
Zoo spokesperson Annika Troselius told Expressen Daily that they had to shoot the chimpanzees because there was not enough tranquilizers for all of them.
She said because chimpanzees are physically strong animals there was a huge risk to humans and therefore they had to take measures to ensure no one was harmed.
It is not clear why the zoo did not have anesthetics for all the animals.
And the zoo has yet to release the names of the animals that were shot and killed.
Troselius says that since they didn’t have enough drugs to subdue the primates, they had to make a decision about how to get control of the situation.
She said the only way to do this was to get people in to shoot the chimps.
But the handling of the incident has devastated a woman who was primate manager at the zoo for 30 years, until 2013.
During Ing-Marie Persson’s time there, she says she built a unique relationship with the animals.
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Even her husband Johnny Persson, former zoo director, is upset about what happened.
Persson said: “These are animals that are close to us, they are family members. There are no fucking lions out there.”
The zoo was evacuated after the chimpanzees escaped. Mrs Persson said this was also standard procedure when she was in charge and there was an escape.
But during her time in charge, she says staff only loaded guns with anesthetic.
Furuvik Zoo had seven chimpanzees.
It is believed to be the only primate research station in the Nordics.
An investigation will take place to find out how the animals escaped and the zoo will then take steps to ensure it does not happen again.
In 2009, the BBC reported that researchers discovered that Santiano, one of the zoo’s chimpanzees, planned hundreds of stone-throwing attacks on visitors to his enclosure.