Jaguar goes on animal killing spree after escaping New Orleans zoo enclosure
A jaguar escaped its enclosure at the Audubon zoo in New Orleans on Saturday morning and killed six other animals in nearby enclosures.
Zoo officials are still investigating how Valerio, an adult male jaguar, got out of “Jaguar Jungle” at the Audubon Nature Institute, zoo officials said during a Saturday news conference.
Valerio escaped at about 7:20 a.m. Saturday, before the zoo was scheduled to open for the day. He was surrounded and sedated about an hour later by the zoo’s veterinary staff, according to a news release.
But the jaguar left six other animals dead before the staff got to him. Valerio killed four alpacas, an emu and a fox.
Three other animals were injured during Valerio’s killing spree, Kyle Burks, the zoo’s managing director, said during the news conference. At least one of those was another of the zoo’s alpacas — Burks said all five of the alpacas in the zoo were attacked by the jungle cat.
Zoo staff called the killing spree a “tragic loss.” The zoo was closed Saturday, but officials said during the news conference that they expected to open Sunday.
“There was no consumption,” said Ron Forman, the zoo’s CEO. “It was probably more of a territorial opportunity. He’s just a normal jaguar as far as we’re concerned. He was just doing what jaguars do.”
Burks said that nothing like what happened Saturday had ever happened at the zoo. However, animals in captivity at Audubon have escaped from their enclosures before, The New Orleans Times-Picayune reported.
A 70-pound jaguar cub named Mulac escaped from its enclosure in 2001 and was loose about 10 minutes before he was subdued by vet staff with a tranquilizer dart, like the much larger Valerio was on Saturday, according to the newspaper. No animals or humans were injured in the 2001 jaguar escape.
An Eastern Colobus monkey escaped in 2013 as well, according to the Times-Picayune, but the 11-pound primate was cornered and recaptured within 30 minutes.
This story was originally published July 14, 2018 at 2:58 PM with the headline "Jaguar goes on animal killing spree after escaping New Orleans zoo enclosure."