Latest news with #zebra
RNZ News
2 days ago
- General
- RNZ News
Orana Wildlife Park resumes taking in animals after six-month pause due to welfare allegations
A zebra foal with its mum at Orana Wildlife Park. (File photo) Photo: Supplied / Orana Wildlife Park Christchurch's Orana Wildlife Park will resume taking new animals following a six-month pause following a review prompted by whistleblowers' animal welfare concerns and allegations of a toxic culture. The Zoo and Aquarium Association (ZAA) launched an independent investigation at the zoo in July last year, while the Orana Wildlife Trust Board asked agency Culture by Design to assess the park's workplace culture. The final report released in December suggested improvements to animal welfare processes , organisational systems, health and safety, asset management, and workplace culture. Orana Wildlife Park said it had met all the requirements set by the ZAA and the pause on incoming animal transfers had been lifted. Orana Wildlife Trust Board co-chairperson Emeritus Professor Ken Hughey said the outcome reflected the organisation's commitment to positive change. "This is a significant step forward. Our team has worked tirelessly to strengthen governance, systems, and processes. The ZAA review has been a catalyst for transformation, and we're proud of the progress made." Hughey said public support had been invaluable. "We want to thank the people of Canterbury and beyond for standing by us. Our team are motivated and remain deeply committed to delivering the highest standards of care to our animals, and as we look toward Orana Wildlife Park's 50th anniversary in 2026, we're focused on the future with confidence and purpose." "We're implementing a five-year vision called Future Focused, aimed at strengthening animal welfare practices, enhancing our organisational culture, and ensuring long-term sustainability. This includes the establishment of a new Animal Welfare Advisory Group to provide independent guidance and ensure ongoing best practice in animal care." The Orana Wildlife Trust Board released a summary of the investigations' outcomes and recommendations last year but declined to publicly release the reports in full, due to privacy reasons. Recommendations included a temporary pause on all incoming animal transfers and for the park to provide an animal welfare accreditation plan to the zoo association. The zoo would also establish a formal process for reporting and addressing animal welfare complaints and incidents, with clear protocols for measuring risk, handling, documenting and resolving matters of concern. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
Washington Post
01-08-2025
- General
- Washington Post
What humans can learn from some of history's greatest zoo escapes
How more than a century's worth of furry, feathery, scaly fugitives won their freedom and our hearts. For a few brief moments on June 8, Ed the zebra dangled from a helicopter in the Tennessee skies, ending eight glorious days of freedom with a heckuva view. Ed * The zebra at the top is a dramatic depiction, but this is the real Ed, hanging from a helicopter. Every photo you'll see from here on is of the real animal. * The zebra at the top is a dramatic depiction, but this is the real Ed, hanging from a helicopter. Every photo you'll see from here on is of the real animal. * The zebra at the top is a dramatic depiction, but this is the real Ed, hanging from a helicopter. Every photo you'll see from here on is of the real animal. Ed's viral odyssey inspired street art, a children's book, cake decorations, country songs and some excellent tattoos, plus a few questions here at the Department of Data, where we have long been captivated by stories of animal escapes. Story continues below advertisement Advertisement We wondered, why are some fugitives so successful? What are their secrets to thriving on the wild side? And, importantly, can we turn this into a column? (A big yes to that last one.) We dove into online news reports from around the world and found more than 90 different species that had weaseled out of captivity in the past 130 years or so, including weasels (or at least their relatives). To be clear, we mean all the way out, into the outside world. Dozens of animals in the United States alone make news for leaving a cage or enclosure every year — animal rights group Born Free USA has catalogued nearly 1,400 such incidents since 1990 — but many never leave the grounds of the zoo or park. Categories What kind of animals escape? All kinds. Our data includes well over 100 escapes, some of which included dozens or hundreds of animals breaking out at the same time. Each silhouette represents an escape, not necessarily an individual animal. Primates 17 Felines 16 Bovines 15 Birds 14 Equine 13 Aquatic or semi-aquatic mammal 11 Monkeys and apes executed 17 of the escapes, including hundreds that ran from research labs. Other small mammals 11 Reptile 8 Camels and llamas 7 Canine 7 Other big mammal This category includes bears, giraffes, an elephant and a white rhino. Marsupial 5 Fishes 3 The 'aquatic and semiaquatic mammals' category includes sea lions, hippos, dolphins, otters, a capybara and a platypus. Some 'other small mammals' are red pandas, hyenas, wolverines, a honey badger, a bearcat (which is neither a bear nor a cat) and a muntjac. Besides cattle, the 'bovine' category includes buffalo, bison and one ovine who didn't fit elsewhere, a ram named Duggy. What kind of animals escape? All kinds. Our data includes well over 100 escapes, some of which included dozens or hundreds of animals breaking out at the same time. Each silhouette represents an escape, not necessarily an individual animal. Primates 17 Felines 16 Bovines 15 Birds 14 Equine 13 Monkeys and apes executed 17 of the escapes, including hundreds that ran from research labs. Aquatic or semi-aquatic mammal 11 Other small mammals 11 Reptile 8 Camels and llamas 7 Canine 7 Other big mammal This category includes bears, giraffes, an elephant and a white rhino. Marsupial 5 Fishes 3 The 'aquatic and semiaquatic mammals' category includes sea lions, hippos, dolphins, otters, a capybara and a platypus. Some 'other small mammals' are red pandas, hyenas, wolverines, a honey badger, a bearcat (which is neither a bear nor a cat) and a muntjac. Besides cattle, the 'bovine' category includes buffalo, bison and one ovine who didn't fit elsewhere, a ram named Duggy. What kind of animals escape? All kinds. Our data includes well over 100 escapes, some of which included dozens or hundreds of animals breaking out at the same time. Each silhouette represents an escape, not necessarily an individual animal. 17 Primates 16 Felines Bovines 15 14 Birds 13 Equine Monkeys and apes executed 17 of the escapes, including hundreds that ran from research labs. Aquatic or semi-aquatic mammal 11 11 Other small mammals 8 Reptile 7 Camels and llamas 7 Canine This category includes bears, giraffes, an elephant and a white rhino. Other big mammal 5 Marsupial 3 Fishes The 'aquatic and semiaquatic mammals' category includes sea lions, hippos, dolphins, otters, a capybara and a platypus. Some 'other small mammals' are red pandas, hyenas, wolverines, a honey badger, a bearcat (which is neither a bear nor a cat) and a muntjac. Besides cattle, the 'bovine' category includes buffalo, bison and one ovine who didn't fit elsewhere, a ram named Duggy. For sure, some of the homebodies made for great stories. Take Ken Allen, an orangutan who repeatedly got out and strolled around the San Diego Zoo in the 1980s, or those bears in Britain that ate a week's worth of honey and went to sleep in June. But it is the critters that ran, slithered or swam into the wider world that truly tickle the reward centers in our brains. 'Every animal escape story is about a prisoner breaking out, just like 'Shawshank Redemption' — like you're rooting for Andy Dufresne,' said psychologist Justin Gregg, who wrote 'Humanish: What Talking to Your Cat or Naming Your Car Reveals About the Uniquely Human Need to Humanize.' Gregg theorizes that when a captive animal gets free, something shifts in our perception, and it becomes an individual. We see the critter's sense of agency — it went for what it wanted! — and figure its mind works like ours. 'And so we create this narrative as if we were that animal,' he said. Classic anthropomorphism. Speaking of anthropomorphism, the more escapes we analyzed, the more we began seeing universal life lessons. For instance, one of the oldest accounts we came across told of an adolescent panther's romp from the Bronx Zoo through a crowd of picnickers, across a river and into the woods in 1902. 'He Eats Sandwiches and a Ham for Lunch, but Balks at Pie,' read a New York Times headline. The lessons? Always make time for a good meal, and you don't have to wait 30 minutes to go for a swim. Cyril the sea lion and Ferb the tortoise proved that it's not the distance; it's the journey. Cyril went long during his two weeks on the lam in 1958, swimming at least 100 miles from his Canadian theme park through assorted waterways to land near Sandusky, Ohio. Ferb, on the other hand, was gone for two months last year in Piedmont, Oklahoma, but was found about 100 feet from hsis home. Story continues below advertisement Advertisement Most escapades last just long enough to provide a good photo or video. Think police chasing a piglet named Pickles in a California hamlet last year, Sheila the kangaroo bouncing down an Alabama highway in April, or the occasional camel bolting from a Christmas play. Within hours or even minutes, escapees are typically returned to the farm, the zoo, the Magi. Even these brief ones delight us, in part because we're seeing a creature in a place where it doesn't belong, said Margo DeMello, an anthrozoologist at Carroll College who studies human' relationships to animals. For example, 'cows don't live on New York City streets,' DeMello said. 'That's the thing that is going to trigger either anxiety and unease or humor and celebration, even if the anxiety, unease, humor, celebration all come into the same place.' Social media turbocharges our fascination, Gregg said, because the photos and videos allow us to look into the animal's eyes. Our brains are primed for connecting with other humans, he said. When we see an animal's face, especially if it's big-eyed and adorable like a human baby, we get some of the same shock and 'awwwwwww!' — even if those eyes are in a much larger face. Story continues below advertisement Advertisement We made a folk hero out of Scrim, a 17-pound rescue mutt who leaped out a window and eluded capture for months despite much of New Orleans being hot on his fluffy white tail. But also out of PHill, a 1,000-pound water buffalo who escaped slaughter last year and for days showed up on trails and doorbell cams in the Des Moines suburb of Pleasant Hill (thus his name, with the capital H). 'He's super affectionate. You can see it in his eyes, just how innocent he is,' said Jered Camp, owner of the sanctuary where PHill now resides. Chichi, a runaway chimp in Ukraine, became an instant star in 2022 thanks to a video of zookeepers bringing her back on a bicycle. Sadly for most of us, 'look adorable on a bicycle' isn't a practical takeaway. The most successful escapees stayed gone. About 1 in 5 escapees in our data were never recaptured. A few were presumed dead, but most were thought — or known — to be thriving. For example, Louie the river otter and his partner, Ophelia, bounced and slid away from a zoo near Green Bay, Wisconsin, during a March snowstorm. The zoo reported in early April that Ophelia had been located, but Louie bent the humans to his will. 'We believe [Louie] has made the decision to be a wild otter,' the zoo said in a May 30 update, citing the many nearby waterways and the survival skills Louie would've acquired as a pup. 'We expect that he's doing just fine out there.' Takeaways: Don't give up too soon. And you never know when random things you learned in childhood will come in handy. Two of the best-documented cases occurred 17 years and 1,000 miles apart, when two flamingos, both named Pink Floyd, used their unclipped feathers to take off like 'Pigs on the Wing' after 'Learning to Fly.' One soared out of a Utah aviary in 1988 and was for years spotted in Idaho and at the Great Salt Lake, which is loaded with tasty brine shrimp. The other, native to Tanzania, left a Wichita zoo in 2005 on 'A Great Day for Freedom' (last one, I promise) and was seen regularly through at least 2022 on the Texas Gulf Coast. Distance Which animals get the farthest? News reports often include how far from home a critter was located, but the exact routes are a mystery. Flyers and swimmers tend have a huge advantage as the flamingo flies, but a hat tip to Scrim the dog, who was sighted all over a 57-square-mile area of New Orleans. Chuva Chris Pink Floyd Pen Buster Cyril Pink Floyd Macaw Rhea Penguin Seal Sea lion Flamingo Flamingo Canada England Utah Japan Canada Canada Kansas 20 20 More than 20 28 Quite a few ostrich-like rheas have sprinted from farms in England and are often named Chris, (after British rocker Chris Rea). In 2014, a Chris startled a cyclist 20 miles away. 90 More than 100 In 1939, Buster squeezed through cage bars and swam in the Bow River from Calgary to a reservoir in Bassano, Canada. More than 500 One of the Pink Floyds regularly showed up in Texas, and another flamingo that escaped at the same time was spotted once in Minnesota. Which animals get the farthest? News reports often include how far from home a critter was located, but the exact routes are a mystery. Flyers and swimmers tend have a huge advantage as the flamingo flies, but a hat tip to Scrim the dog, who was sighted all over a 57-square-mile area of New Orleans. Chuva Chris Pink Floyd Pen Buster Cyril Pink Floyd Macaw Rhea Flamingo Penguin Seal Sea lion Flamingo Canada England Utah Japan Canada Canada Kansas 20 20 More than 20 28 Quite a few ostrich-like rheas have sprinted from farms in England and are often named Chris, (after British rocker Chris Rea). In 2014, a Chris startled a cyclist 20 miles away. 90 More than 100 In 1939, Buster squeezed through cage bars and swam in the Bow River from Calgary to a reservoir in Bassano, Canada. More than 500 One of the Pink Floyds regularly showed up in Texas, and another flamingo that escaped at the same time was spotted once in Minnesota. Which animals get the farthest? News reports often include how far from home a critter was located, but the exact routes are a mystery. Flyers and swimmers tend have a huge advantage as the flamingo flies, but a hat tip to Scrim the dog, who was sighted all over a 57-square-mile area of New Orleans. Flaco Frankie Chuva Chris Pink Floyd Pen Buster Cyril Pink Floyd Eurasian eagle owl Falcon Macaw Rhea Penguin Seal Sea lion Flamingo Flamingo New York England Canada England Utah Japan Canada Canada Kansas 10 miles 16 20 20 More than 20 28 Not surprisingly, birds go the farthest, if they want to. Flaco covered far more than 10 miles in his year-plus of freedom but didn't appear to stray far from the city. Quite a few ostrich-like rheas have sprinted from farms in England and are often named Chris, (after British rocker Chris Rea). In 2014, a Chris startled a cyclist 20 miles away. 90 More than 100 In 1939, Buster squeezed through cage bars and swam in the Bow River from Calgary to a reservoir in Bassano, Canada. More than 500 One of the Pink Floyds regularly showed up in Texas, and another flamingo that escaped at the same time was spotted once in Minnesota. Some successful aquatic Houdinis already knew the lay of the sea before they returned to it. In 2016, Inky, a rescued and rehabilitated octopus, squeezed down a drainpipe at New Zealand's National Aquarium that led him back to the South Pacific. Sampal the dolphin, four years after being illegally sold by fishermen to a performing show, wriggled out of a temporary pen off the South Korean island of Jeju in 2013, rejoined her family pod and was spotted four months later with a calf. Sometimes, you can go home again. Of course, not all creatures' forays into the wild end happily or safely, another reason we root so hard for them. Flaco, the Eurasian eagle owl who captured the hearts of New Yorkers, fluttered around the city for more than a year after fleeing the Central Park Zoo before apparently flying hard into a building on the Upper West Side in 2024. X and other sites were filled with odes and remembrances, as they would be for any beloved celebrity. Similarly, a bovine nicknamed Hero Cow escaped slaughter in southern Poland for a month in 2018 by swimming to a cluster of scrubby islands. She died during an attempt to rescue her and send her to a sanctuary. Celebrating the wins, particularly of an agricultural animal that breaks loose on the way to slaughter, can act as a safety valve for our collective consciences, DeMello said, similar to the traditional Thanksgiving turkey pardons. Neither changes the food system, but both offer a bit of relief. 'There's nothing like a hero's journey,' she said. 'So even where we are transporting millions per year of cattle and pigs and chickens to their death, those singular cases of the cow, the turkey, the pig — whatever it is — getting off of that truck somehow and making his or her way through a city? It's everything that we need.' Story continues below advertisement Advertisement Perhaps none of the escapees succeeded as spectacularly as Diesel, a pet donkey who lived in Auburn, California, after being adopted from the Bureau of Land Management's wild horse and burro program. In 2019, he got loose during training for a backpacking trip with his owner, who searched for months and assumed he had died. Five years later, a hunter in the California wilderness captured video of about a dozen frolicking elk, and right in the middle was Diesel, appearing strong and healthy, if a bit less graceful than his herdmates. From Diesel, we get our favorite takeaway from this entire (mostly qualitative) analysis: The greatest success can be finding your people, no matter how different from you they at first appear to be.
Yahoo
08-07-2025
- Climate
- Yahoo
Zebra at Roger Williams Park Zoo dies during storm. Here's what zookeepers say happened.
PROVIDENCE – A zebra at Roger Williams Park Zoo died after apparently panicking during the July 3 storm and running into a fence, the zoo said on Facebook. "We are devastated as we share the news of the passing of Samantha, one of our cherished Plains zebras," the zoo said. The storm brought heavy rain, strong winds and thunderstorms to Rhode Island. "It appears that Samantha panicked during the storm that occurred on the evening of July 3rd and suffered a fatal injury after colliding with a fence in her holding area; a necropsy confirmed that she passed instantaneously," the zoo said. "This was truly a tragic accident, and our Zoo family is heartbroken by this sudden and unexpected loss." "Samantha was a beloved member of our zebra herd and had a particularly strong bond with her companion Tundra. Both Tundra and Zipper, the Zoo's remaining zebras, are being closely monitored by our animal care and veterinary teams as they adjust to this sudden loss," the zoo said. "Samantha was known for her sweet, yet shy personality. She was 24 years old and arrived at our Zoo in 2003." This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: RI weather: Zebra at Roger Williams Park Zoo panics, dies during storm
CNN
13-06-2025
- CNN
Alex Cooper accuses former BU soccer coach of sexual harassment
Tennessee sheriff's office airlifts escaped zebra to safety DEK: A zebra, that escaped from its owner in Christiana, Tennessee was captured on Sunday and airlifted to safety by the local sheriff's office. The animal, named Ed, had been reported missing just a day after he was acquired by its owners in Rutherford County. They have since been reunited.
CBC
11-06-2025
- Entertainment
- CBC
WATCH — How Ed the zebra got loose and became a meme
It took authorities 9 days to catch him A runaway pet zebra became an online meme for outrunning authorities for nine days in the U.S. Ed the zebra was finally caught in Christiana, Tennessee, on June 8, said the Rutherford County Sheriff's Office. Crews airlifted him from a pasture to a nearby animal trailer. Ed got loose not long after he arrived at his new home. Watch the video below to find out what happened next. ⬇️⬇️⬇️ Ed the internet celebrity While he was loose, videos and photos of Ed were being posted online. Some even made memes of Ed, comparing him to a fugitive on the run. In this AI-generated video, Ed is seen dodging police like in the game Grand Theft Auto. (Video credit: EdTheZebraOnSol/X) Businesses and public services in the area hopped on the trend, too, using Ed in their social media posts. Scroll through to see some examples. Zebras as pets If you're thinking about getting your own pet zebra, it's not that simple. Some U.S. states, like Tennessee, allow people to have zebras and other exotic animals as pets. But in Canada, the rules differ depending on the province, territory or municipality you live in. Generally speaking, animal advocates say it isn't a good idea to keep a wild or exotic pet because of their unique physical and emotional needs. Check out these other videos:
