Monday, May 11, 2009

The Great Escape

Yesterday was a disappointment to many Mothers' Day zoo patrons when they were evacuated from the Adelaide Zoo. An enterprising orangutan tried to leave her enclosure. She shorted out the electric fence and then dragged tree branches into a pile in a bid to scale the wall. How clever was that!

Meet Karta, the culprit - a 27 year old 62kg primate.

10 comments:

Leeds daily photo said...

Real nice photo, beautiful animal. I guess if I was caged I would try for an exit.

Miranda McAfee said...

Pretty and smart, a good combination.

Emma Bond said...

I love this photo and the story to go with it is great!

Donna said...

Hahahaaa....poor thing!! Wants to be Free!!hughugs

Jane Hards Photography said...

Excellent photography, but what a tale. Cheeky monkey indeed.

Ann, Chen Jie Xue 陈洁雪 said...

This escape gives those animal advocates that animals should not be kept in zoos.

How sad, children enjoy so much from the zoos. I would hate it if one day, there will be no more zoos.

Your orang utan is very nice. man of the jungle as it is known in the land of my birth, Borneo.

Audit Diva said...

This story made me smile when it appeared on the news. Good on ya Karta!

I don't approve of her escaping, she could have got too far away and might have been hurt, but I think it's a good reminder of how smart the orang utan are.

It's almost too sad for her to be in a zoo but it would be sadder if she were to fall victim to poachers in the wild.

Someone they interviewed on the news about it said she may have been looking for her mate who died earlier in the year.

Von said...

Her mate died, wouldn't it be lovely if they could find her a new one? or take her and her friends to Monarto, a large open zoo where they would have more space and a better life so might not want to escape.Zoo enclosures no matter how full of interest are boring for intelligent animals who need challenges and adventures.Sad!

alicesg said...

I think they prefer to be in the wild. Our famous orang utan, Ah Meng once escaped while filming and climb up a tree and broke her arm. Ah Meng had live a long life but she passed away last year and her tomb is in the Mandai Zoo.

Another orang utan escaped while doing a show, I witnessed the whole incident. The orang utan climb up the roof of the amphitheatre and broke one antenna and threw it at the audience, luckily noone was hurt.

But without the zoo, we wont be able to see animals up so close. But it is sad to see them so stress.

And I am so very afraid of tigers and I have no idea why I keep dreaming of tigers...lol

Jupp said...

Very nice blog, with great photos. Congratulations