22.05.12
When the Los Angeles Zoo was construction its elaborate six-acre exhibit for Asian elephants, which opened a year ago, it included masses of features to engage the animals -- waterfalls, mud holes, sandy hills. On Tuesday, a caller decided to offer them one other feature -- herself. A woman scaled a ha-ha and clambered through wire fencing to get to the female elephants, Tina and Gemstone. Neither she nor the elephants were physically harmed. The unsanctioned caller reportedly later described herself as suffering from a mental illness. She was infatuated to an area hospital for treatment.
A spokesman said the zoo had no plans to escalating security. That seems reasonable in this case. A zoo visitor has to cross an obstacle course of fences and ditches to get inside the enclosure for such an up-familiar and unauthorized meeting with the world's largest land mammals.
Most zoos ordinarily have forbidding barriers of fencing and shrubbery and topography to prevent or, at least awe, trespassing into exhibits. But this incident, though rare, was another example of how visitors can be as risky as the wild animals they come to the zoo to see. Even if it's physically plausible to get into an enclosure, zoos rely on -- and rightly expect -- people to view a certain decorum when they're visiting. For instance, even if you can organize a chicken tender into an animal's exhibit, you shouldn't, because the zoo asks people not to provender the animals. Nor should visitors scream at, pelt with food or otherwise harass the animals, and there is as per usual signage around a zoo stating as much.
Source: Los Angeles Times