A two-year-old has been killed at Pittsburgh Zoo

[DaveM]

A two-year-old has been killed at Pittsburgh Zoo in the US after he fell off a railing into an enclosure for wild dogs.

Police say the boy's mother put him on top of the railing to view the African painted dogs.

He then fell 11 feet into the enclosure, where he was attacked by the wild animals.

Visitors to the zoo immediately told staff members when the boy fell from the railing.

Zookeepers called off the dogs, and seven of them immediately withdrew from the child.

Three other dogs were eventually drawn away from the boy, but the last dog had to be shot.

Read more ....

 

[DaveM]

Well I suppose it will be the zoo that is now liable even though the mother should be locked away for putting the child in dangers way

 

[otherwise]

Just shaking my head at this story. Some people don't deserve to have children. It's like that Jackson bloke dangling his child from the hotel window but he didn't drop the kid.

 

[DaveM]

Yes it does make you wonder what she was thinking

 

[Silli]

There is no cure for SID

 

[Silli]

Interesting result above.......

I obviously wrote S T U P I D

 

[DaveM]

Yup and the U P is seen as UP

 

[DaveB]

So tragic.

So stupid.

So preventable. Poor toddler.

 

[Gromit]

Totally moronic! Mother should be prosecuted not the Zoo. The zoo put up a fence/railing for a reason! Aargh - this kind of stuff makes me so angry! Wild Dogs have that name for a reason and they're a really dangerous species!

 

[CarlS]

The mother ought to be jailed for criminal child neglect.

 

[The Seeker]

Totally moronic! Mother should be prosecuted not the Zoo. The zoo put up a fence/railing for a reason! Aargh - this kind of stuff makes me so angry! Wild Dogs have that name for a reason and they're a really dangerous species!

I don't think the zoo will be liable.....it's been inspected and given top marks for both safety and treatment of the animals. The zoo staff responded very quickly and police were there in 5 minutes.

Those dogs are on the endangered species list.

People here in Pittsburgh are just sick over this!

PS: The Vet where my Daughter works is the official vet for the zoo and the aviary



Posted using Tapatalk 2 via my RAZR

 

[The Seeker]

Wild dogs kill 2-year-old who fell into Pittsburgh zoo exhibit

Pleasant Hills toddler falls from gazebo railing into African painted dogs exhibit, is killed in minutes

By Taryn Luna, Don Hopey and Karen Kane / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

A 2-year-old boy fell 14 feet into the African painted dog exhibit area at the Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium shortly before noon Sunday and was mauled to death by the dogs.

Police said the child lost his balance after his mother lifted him in a standing position onto the 4-foot-high wooden railing of an elevated, gazebolike structure that overlooks the enclosure. He toppled over the railing, hit a mesh shelf and landed on the ground of the open exhibit space, where he was set upon by the 11 dogs in the area.

The medical examiner's office would not release the child's name Sunday evening. Police said he and his 34-year-old mother are from Pleasant Hills and were visiting the zoo with cousins, an adult and another child.

Major Crimes Lt. Kevin Kraus declined to comment on potential charges and said the bureau will continue to investigate to determine if anything could have prevented the death.

Angela Cinti, 20, of Bethel Park saw the attack and described a horrifying scene that lasted minutes but seemed like hours.

"The screams just kept coming and coming," said Ms. Cinti, who was at the zoo with her boyfriend. "We were on our way to the polar bear exhibit when we heard the most horrible piercing screams. ... Someone was begging for help, asking someone to do something."

As they ran toward the screams, she saw a small crowd of distressed onlookers and the little boy's apparently lifeless body lying on the hill inside the painted dog exhibit with three of the animals at his head, neck and leg.

Lt. Kraus said no one in the crowd of observers went in after the child. The boy was pronounced dead at the scene at noon, 12 minutes after the first 911 call.

Lt. Kraus said an initial group of zoo personnel reached the scene minutes after the boy's fall and lured seven of the dogs away from him and into a secure area. A second set began throwing objects and using other distraction techniques to secure three more dogs.

"Dummy tranquilizer rounds" were shot into the exhibit in an effort to scare the dogs away, which zoo officials said were ineffective because "the dogs were in pack mentality and not responding." Lt. Kraus said zoo personnel might have avoided using real rounds in fear of further injuring the child. Zoo personnel were not available to explain their reasoning.

A final dog, which was acting very aggressively toward the victim and zoo personnel, was shot multiple times by police officers and later died. Police are trying to determine if the animal had a history of threatening behavior.

"It's been traumatic for everybody," Lt. Kraus. "From what I understand what occurred at that scene until it was secured was horrific."

Zoo president and chief executive officer Barbara Baker said, "Our hearts and prayers and deepest sympathies go out to the family of the child."

Bart DePasquale was near the tiger exhibit just before noon Sunday when he heard the screams coming from up the hill, where the African painted dogs are housed.

"People were yelling 'Get away,' and 'Stay away,' and it wasn't just one person, it was an entire group of people," said Mr. DePasquale, who was at the zoo with his children to attend a birthday party. "The screams sounded heavily distressed, and the people were using profanity. They were shouting to zoo employees."

Mr. DePasquale, 29, of Fox Chapel said they were told to go inside to the children's center where two birthday parties were under way, and they were kept there for about a half-hour.

"We were locked down in the building and told to stay inside. The zoo employees said it was a 'code red,' " he said. "We thought it was a problem with one of the animals that got loose. Then we were told it was an incident with the wild dogs and that a child had been hurt."

Ms. Baker said a "code red" means that there was a serious human emergency in play.

A short time later zoo personnel told the adults at the birthday parties that the zoo was closed and they needed to leave. The zoo will be closed indefinitely.

"On the way out I saw a mother who was distressed and crying and other people who couldn't even talk about it," Mr. DePasquale said. "We could hear screams of the crowds of people and anyone who had been close was almost in tears, was walking out glassy-eyed. That's when multiple people told me the dogs attacked a young child."

Lt. Kraus said the boy's father, who arrived at the zoo shortly after the attack, and mother received medical treatment for emotional trauma.

Ms. Baker said no decision has been made about the future of the exhibit.

The African painted dog exhibit debuted after the October 2006 birth of nine pups. A surrogate mutt was drafted into service for the pups after their natural mother died of a ruptured uterus. In the spring of this year, nine of the 11 painted dogs escaped a section of their enclosure, causing a brief shutdown of the zoo.

Ms. Baker said at that time, on May 5, that the dogs got into a 1.5-acre "backup yard" not visible to the public, but the dogs were not out of their exhibit.

African painted dogs are an endangered species.

In September, the zoo announced that it had again been accredited by the Association of Zoos & Aquariums after a review of its animal care, veterinary programs, conservation, education and safety.

AZA is a nonprofit with a team of professionals that inspect and review each zoo or aquarium seeking accreditation. Currently 224 facilities have been recognized and approved by the organization. The Pittsburgh zoo has been recognized by AZA since 1986.

 

[The Seeker]

Painted dogs acted on instinct, Pittsburgh Zoo CEO says
'They were doing what dogs do . . . they acted as a pack'



African painted dogs, endangered in the wild on that continent, have been roaming the small simulated grassland savanna at the Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium since 2006.

When a small child tragically fell Sunday over the railing of the painted dog observation deck built in 2009, Barbara Baker, the zoo's president and chief executive officer, said the dogs acted instinctively.

"The dogs were doing what the dogs do," Ms. Baker said at the news conference at the zoo Sunday. "They acted as a pack."

According to the Pittsburgh Zoo's website, African painted dogs are also called African wild dogs, Cape hunting dogs, spotted dogs and painted wolves. They have large rounded ears; have mottled brown, black and beige coats; and weigh between 37 and 80 pounds. Ms. Baker compared their size to that of "a small German shepherd."

According to the zoo's website, African painted dogs hunt in packs in the wild and eat antelope, zebras, wildebeest, springboks, gazelles and impala.

According to the Wildlife Conservation Network and Pittsburgh Zoo websites, painted dogs were once commonly found in 39 African countries and numbered more than half a million. But human development and settlement have constricted their range, and they are often hit by cars and trucks and shot by farmers to protect livestock. The websites estimate there are now an estimated 3,000 in the wild, mainly in the southern African nations of Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Botswana and South Africa.

The zoo's exhibit is part of a partnership with the Zimbabwe-based Painted Dog Conservation.

There is no record of an African painted dog attacking a human in the wild, according to the Wildlife Conservation Network website.

 

[Rocky]

I'm so dismayed at the stupidity of people that I didn't read any more of the first post or the later ones in greater detail.
I don't need to know that information or have any sort of mental image in my head.
As a parent I did everything in my power to protect my children from harm and they grew up unscathed.
Even today, when I tell my 47 year-old daughter to be careful on the highway, she retorts, "Dad, I'm not ten years-old anymore" - and then she laughs.
They never stop being your kids.

 

[CarlS]

Even today, when I tell my 47 year-old daughter to be careful on the highway, she retorts, "Dad, I'm not ten years-old anymore" - and then she laughs.
They never stop being your kids.

I can certainly relate to that!

 

[The Seeker]

There are people around here complaining that the police shot and killed one of the dogs because (1) they are on the endangered species list and (2) because the dogs were only doing what instinct tells them to do.

 

[DaveM]

[video=youtube;wHEvhrqOpwE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHEvhrqOpwE[/video]

 

[CarlS]

What a terrible way for the little kid to have died.

 

[hemibee]

No child's life should end this way. Unfortunately there is no test or qualification guidelines to reproducing.

Major Crimes Lt. Kevin Kraus declined . . . the bureau will continue to investigate to determine if anything could have prevented the death.

Don't put a 2 year old on the top railing.



Posting with Tapatalk for iPhone.

 

[CarlS]

It doesn't take a PhD to figure that one out!