Design of Brooklyn Zoo Faulted in Boy’s Fatal Mauling by Bears

Experts said Wednesday that modern zoo design probably could have prevented the death of an 11-year-old boy who was mauled by polar bears after he sneaked into their enclosure after hours at the antiquated Prospect Park Zoo.

“This should have never happened,” said David Herbet, a captive-wildlife specialist for the Humane Society of the United States. “Someone at the Department of Parks should have looked at this a little closer and should have seen the possibility of this happening.”

Police officers, responding to a report Tuesday evening of screams coming from the zoo in Brooklyn, found two polar bears devouring the remains of Juan Perez of Brooklyn.

The officers spotted three sets of clothing inside the bear enclosure and killed the animals with 20 shotgun rounds before searching the pen for Perez’s companions. Authorities learned later that the two other boys, aged 10 and 11, had fled the zoo.

The boys told investigators they had entered the zoo after closing time Tuesday with the intention of swimming in the seal pool, but instead decided to swim in the polar bears’ moat on a dare, police Capt. Michael Julian said.

Julian said the boys apparently crawled through a hole in the zoo’s perimeter fence or climbed it. Parks officials said a night watchman was on duty.

The Parks Department operates the 10-acre zoo, which has changed little since it was built in 1935 and was recently included on a list of the nation’s 10 worst zoos.

Richard Lattis of the private New York Zoological Society said the zoo, which houses animals in cages or in pit-style enclosures such as the polar bear lair, was not well designed even by the standards of the 1930s and is not well equipped to keep out prowlers.