Tiger experts check zoo safety
2008-01-29 12:33
San Francisco - A team of tiger experts has spent recent days examining the big cat grotto and reviewing safety procedures at the San Francisco Zoo, where a teenager was killed in an attack last month.
The three-person team sent by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, which accredits facilities nationwide, arrived on Saturday, zoo spokesperson Lora LaMarca said.
The review was to wrap up on Monday, but findings were not expected to be immediately released.
At a city committee hearing on Monday, officials said grotto renovations, including raising the wall around the tiger exhibit, would be done by early February.
The new exhibit is set to include barriers at least 5.8m - nearly 2.1m higher than the wall at the time of the attack and about 90cm higher than AZA recommendations.
The additions under way include raising the grottoes' concrete walls to the recommended height of five metres, topped by glass screens for public viewing and wire mesh fencing surrounded by foliage, said Yomi Agunbiade, general manager of the San Francisco Recreation and Park Department.
Workers also are installing electrified "hot wires" at the top of the walls, Agunbiade said. The project is expected to be finished on February 7 at a cost of about $1m.
The zoo's tigers and lions have remained in their indoor enclosures since the renovations began just after the attacks but will be let back outside as soon as the work was completed, zoo officials said.
An escaped 113.4kg Siberian tiger killed 17-year-old Carlos Sousa Jr and wounded brothers Paul Dhaliwal, 19, and Kulbir Dhaliwal, 23, on December 25.
The zoo has no video cameras monitoring the big cat exhibit, and is working with a security contractor to have some installed, zoo director Manuel Mollinedo said.
Neither investigators nor the brothers have described in detail how they believe the tiger left the enclosure. The zoo's director has said he believes the animal climbed or leapt out.
- AP