A Swedish zoo safely recovered three chimpanzees who had managed to break free from their enclosure. However, the unfortunate and tragic incident resulted in four primates being fatally shot.
The Furuvik zoo released a statement on Saturday, stating that the surviving animals are now receiving the necessary care, with one injured chimpanzee receiving veterinary attention.
Apes escaped on Wednesday, with some leaving the monkey house as their home. Due to the potential danger to the public, officials had no choice but to resort to lethal measures, with two chimpanzees being shot on zoo grounds and one found deceased inside the monkey house.
Caretakers were only able to gain entry into the monkey house on Saturday, where they discovered the remains of a fourth chimpanzee.
In a statement released on Facebook, the zoo expressed deep remorse: “What has happened is a great tragedy and a huge failure of us.
We all feel a huge sadness about what has happened and mourn our beloved chimps Linda, Torsten, Santino and Manda.
We are very keen to get to the bottom of how this could have happened, and the investigation may show where we have (failed) or if we could have acted differently.”
The Furuvik zoo, situated near Gavle, 165 kilometers north of Stockholm, is part of an amusement park and is the only primate research station in the Nordic countries, according to the park’s website.
Unfortunately, this is not the first time animals have escaped from Swedish zoos in recent months. In October, an evil king cobra had broken free from its enclosure in another Swedish zoo, only to return after a week.
