Major Munchies For Zoo Gorilla
Zookeepers in Pittsburgh are trying to figure out how a gorilla got loose and managed to make a pig of herself by wolfing down muffins, cherry pastries and soda pop at a concession area normally reserved for humans.
About 250 people cowered inside nearby buildings at the Pittsburgh Zoo & Aquarium for 45 minutes, after the 150-pound female gorilla escaped from an outdoor exhibit by crossing a wide moat and scaling a 14-foot wall to freedom.
The animal, which is only 3-1/2 feet tall and is not considered a public danger, quickly found her way to the zoo's outdoor concession area on Sunday afternoon and began digging through overflowing trash cans.
"She seemed to especially like the Orange Slice" soda pop, Barbara Baker, the zoo president and chief executive, told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
Zookeepers finally lured her into a women's lavatory, where they injected her with a tranquilizer.
No one was ever in danger from the unnamed gorilla, the first to escape from the zoo's decade-old Tropical Forest Complex and make it to what one zookeeper described as "the wrong side of the monkey house."
Zoo visitors, however, had a few moments of anxiety.
"A gentleman got out and said we had to head to an indoor facility," says David Gray, one of the visitors who happened to be on hand at the time. "A little bit of panic set in and I assumed it was a tiger got loose, or a lion."
Members of the zoo's Animal Escape Team believe the animal may have climbed to freedom on a bamboo stalk that had fallen into a waterless moat which surrounds the gorilla exhibit.
The gorilla was later reported to be in good shape, though zookeepers feared she may experience some nausea as a result of the anesthesia and the junk food, a drastic change from her diet of fruit and monkey chow.
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