ST. LOUIS — An Andean bear named Ben who escaped from his enclosure at the St. Louis Zoo earlier this month made another brief escape Thursday afternoon.
The bear, who is 4 years old and weighs about 280 pounds, escaped at about 1 p.m. and was found about 100 feet from his habitat, on a public path of the River’s Edge area of the zoo.
“Zoo staff responded immediately, and he’s now being transported back to his indoor holding area,” zoo spokesman Billy Brennan wrote in a text at 1:45 p.m. “Guests and staff are safe and inside buildings at this time. We expect to have the ‘all clear’ shortly and operate normally.”
The zoo was given the “all clear” within the next five minutes, and guests were allowed to leave zoo buildings such as the primate house and herpetarium where they were asked to stay until the bear could be tranquilized in order to be contained.
When Ben escaped earlier this month, he had managed to tear apart clips that attached stainless steel mesh to the frame of a door, said St. Louis Zoo director Michael Macek.
After that, zoo workers added zip tie-like attachments made of stainless steel that had 450 pounds of tensile strength, used to secure cargo on ships, he said.
“We thought they would work, but he managed to snap the clips again,” he said. “We’re obviously looking at other methods to secure the mesh to the frame.”
Ben is the only bear in that enclosure, zoo officials said.
They planned to seek the advice of a bear taxon advisory group administered by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums.
Regina Mossotti, the zoo’s vice president of animal care, said she was impressed by the team’s “amazing” response to the situation.
“How calm they were, how quickly they reacted, how they worked together. ... I’ve been really impressed how they worked to make sure Ben is safe, the team is safe and the public is safe.”
On Feb. 7, Ben was discovered outside of his habitat on the public path at the River’s Edge around 8 a.m. and recaptured around 9:40 a.m., before the zoo opened. He was a little closer to his habitat then, pacing the perimeter and actually trying to get back in, officials said. He was tranquilized and returned to his indoor holding area.
Anto Park, 29, from Irvine, California, was visiting the St. Louis Zoo on Thursday afternoon with family while in town for a wedding.
“We were just walking around the big cat exhibits when staff members flagged us down telling us there was an emergency,” he messaged to a reporter via Twitter around 2:30 p.m. “They ushered us to the primate house where we heard it was a bear that had escaped. We were in there for a while, but they gave us the all clear about half an hour ago.”
He added that “the zoo’s great, really surprised there was no fee for admission!”
Ben arrived at the zoo in 2021. Andean bears are the only bears found in South America and are considered vulnerable due to poaching threats and habitat loss.
Zoo staffers go through regular escape drills and training for such incidents, and have a set emergency response protocol. Several strange incidents recently at Dallas’ zoo have sparked national interest, including a man charged with stealing two monkeys. Someone also cut a hole in the fencing of a clouded leopard, allowing the animal to escape. The man was charged in that case, too.
In November 2007, a 40-pound cheetah escaped its yard at River’s Edge before being captured a half hour later. In August 2003, another cheetah escaped the yard by scaling a 10-foot wall and was lured back within 20 minutes. In April 2000, another cheetah cleared a moat and perched on its wall but didn’t clear a fence that separated her from the public.
In 1970, a venomous cobra escaped from its enclosure in the Reptile House and was found in a Reptile House crawl space 40 days later. Also in 1970, a baby sea lion climbed out of its pool over night, waddled across Hampton Avenue, and was found near maintenance sheds in Forest Park the next day.
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