Adelaide Zoo has launched a precautionary review of its safety protocols after a high school student climbed into the zoo’s giant panda enclosure to retrieve a mobile phone he had dropped.
Key points:
- A student visiting the zoo entered the giant panda enclosure to recover his dropped phone
- The zoo says the intruder was safely retrieved, and that neither Wang Wang nor Fu Ni was affected
- But it said it would undertake a review of its safety protocols
The zoo has confirmed the student, who was part of a large school group visiting the home of pandas Wang Wang and Fu Ni, today entered their enclosure to recover the phone from “inside the periphery” around lunch time.
While the staff quickly retrieved the young intruder, the incident triggered an emergency response and review by the zoo.
Zoos SA chief executive Elaine Bensted said while the boy was not injured, his school had been advised to seek a medical check because he came into contact with the enclosure’s protective wire.
“A secondary school student was filming at the giant panda enclosure and dropped a mobile phone and made the unwise decision to attempt to retrieve the phone and so actually entered the giant panda enclosure,” she said.
“[We were able to] switch off the hot wires that we protect the animal area with, and use a ladder to retrieve the student — he was fine, he did report some tingling in his fingers because he did touch the hot wire but pleased to say it appears nothing more than that.”
In a statement, Zoos SA said staff had been quick to “operate emergency protocols to safely retrieve the visitor”.
“While Zoos SA is confident that its response was timely and in proportion to the incident, it will review all safety protocols and procedures,” it said.
Only Wang Wang was in the enclosure at the time, and the panda appeared to have slept through the commotion, the zoo said.
“Giant pandas are not aggressive animals. They are large and they are bears, so they do have large teeth and they have large claws but their very nature is not aggressive,” Ms Bensted said.
The zoo’s bamboo forest, which is one of its most popular attractions, was reopened to the public about half an hour after the incident.
The giant panda enclosure has been home to Wang Wang and Fu Ni since their arrival from China in 2009.
In August, a red panda escaped from the Adelaide Zoo, sparking a two-day search and recovery effort that concluded when the seven-year-old creature was retrieved from a tree in nearby Botanic Park.
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