Fatal Attack by Bears Alarms Local Officials : Animals Are Not ‘Gentle Bens,’ the Experts Point Out in Wake of Brooklyn Zoo Tragedy

“I think people get a false sense of security . . . . Maybe these kids watched too much ‘Gentle Ben.’ That’s a real danger. That’s why we have people feeding bears in Yellowstone and elsewhere.”

That sad speculation came Wednesday from Jean Hromadka, president of the American Assn. of Zoo Keepers and an elephant keeper at the San Diego Wild Animal Park when she was asked about the tragedy at Brooklyn’s Prospect Park the night before.

Youngster Killed

On Tuesday, 11-year-old Juan Perez of Brooklyn was killed by two polar bears after he and two friends entered the bear enclosure after the zoo closed. Zoo officials there said the area is surrounded by a tall, barred fence, but that would not prevent someone from getting into the bear pit. Two companions who accompanied Perez into the compound escaped without injury and police shot the bears to death.

Hromadka and zoo officials elsewhere expressed the fear that the public sometimes doesn’t comprehend the dangers posed by wild animals. But, in general, they said zoos take precautions to guard against such attitudes.

“I don’t understand why the bears were out,” Hromadka said of the Prospect Park tragedy. “Usually most zoos bring their bears in at night, especially polar bears. I’ve not been at a zoo where they leave the bears out at night. Maybe they got out. Polar bears are notorious for killing people. If you go in with them you’re not going to come back out.”

Gary Zarr, a spokesman for the New York Department of Parks and Recreation, responded that he had not heard questions concerning why the bears were not locked up at night. But an investigation is in progress, he said. Although the bears were surrounded by two four-foot-high fences, an island and a moat, he added, “It is an outdated zoo. But we’ve never had any problem. For the last 50 years there’s never been any incident like this. . . . We did not feel bears were any danger to the public. Nothing from our experience indicated that a tragedy like this could occur.”

L.A. Zoo’s Practices

At the Los Angeles Zoo in Griffith Park, the two polar bears and other carnivores are locked up at night behind concrete and steel barriers in areas called “bedrooms” that keep the animals from sight. During the day, the bears are separated from the public in a pit surrounded by a five-foot-high fence, five feet of land, a 15-foot moat and a pool.

“We have (the bedrooms) for control,” said zoo director Dr. Warren Thomas. It’s done not only to keep the public safe from the animals, but to keep the animals safe from various threats such as coyotes or earthquakes. The zoo also has a nighttime security crew.

“But let me add,” he said, “that it’s virtually impossible to stop everyone from an injury or fatality if they’re bent on doing it.”

In October of 1980, a man was mauled to death at the zoo one afternoon after he jumped or fell into an area containing three rare Asian lions.

Much as Hromadka had commented, Thomas noted that when a wild animal is behind bars at a zoo it may seem like a cute, cuddly creature. “Let’s say that familiarity breeds contempt,” he said. “People go to zoos and see these wonderful animals across a moat and it doesn’t register that what they’re looking at is the end product of millions of years of evolution to survive.”

Average 900 Pounds

Polar bears are one of the biggest of the species, he added (they grow to an average 900 pounds) and are “certainly one of the most aggressive. That figures, considering what environment it comes from. A polar bear inherits this innate drive to pursue a moving target. If this bear was in the wild it wouldn’t miss many opportunities to get food. If the kid (in New York) had not moved, who’s to say how the bear would have reacted? But when he did move, it was like an automatic triggering device.”

At the San Diego Zoo, the polar bears and other carnivorous animals are kept locked up in similar bedrooms at night, out of sight from the public, except for times when the animals become stubborn and refuse to go in. Carmi Perry, curator of mammals at the San Diego Zoo, said those instances are unpredictable but occur “no more than two or three times a year.”

“To be honest,” he said, “(an incident like the one in New York) could happen to any zoo at any place. What happened appears to be a definite effort to get into the bear unit, and there’s nothing you can do to prevent that. I think basic human nature is to get as close as you can. Zoo animals are actually more dangerous than wild animals because they are accustomed to humans. If you ran into an animal in the wild, its first reaction would be to avoid you. But animals in captivity have no fear of humans. Children have an appeal to carnivores because of their size and their rapid, jerky motions. The noises they make are shrill. Those things combined equate to what a prey animal would look like to a carnivore.”

This is not the first time a polar bear or other carnivorous animal has attacked humans who have gotten too close; in 1972 two polar bears at a Perth, Australia, zoo mauled a man to death who had jumped into their pit. A man who fell into a polar bear pit at the Buffalo Zoo in New York was injured in 1979, and in 1982 a 1,200-pound polar bear at the Central Park Zoo in New York killed a man who climbed into the animal’s cage.

Tiger Mauled Boy

Locally, in addition to the 1980 lion attack at the L.A. Zoo, in 1982 a 2-year-old boy was mauled by a Siberian tiger at the now defunct Lion Country Safari in Irvine and suffered brain injuries and partial paralysis. The tiger, part of an animal show, apparently wandered out of its enclosure and attacked the boy.

In 1983 a female elephant at Lion Country Safari broke loose from its chains and crushed a zoologist to death, then ran into the hills and was eventually caught after a three-hour pursuit.

That same year a rare wild stallion at the San Diego Wild Animal Park bit the arm of a park keeper, breaking it in two places.

Guy Lichty has had first-hand experience with the ferocity of polar bears; the mammal keeper at the San Diego Zoo was attacked by two polar bears in 1979 while working at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in Colorado Springs, Colo.

The attack occurred while Lichty was cleaning a polar bear exhibit. “A flaw in the design of the enclosure and human error,” put him in the grips of a male and a female polar bear, he said.

“It all happened in a split second. The male bear pulled me inside (a section of the den) and dragged me into the bedroom where the female was. I just figured it was all over for me. I figured I’d made a goof that would cost me my life.

“I think I went into shock right away. I knew I was being torn up. Chewed and mauled. But I couldn’t feel it. I could just hear it happening. Sensation was not there. I was conscious for the whole 30 minutes. I was sort of a Raggedy Andy doll for them to play with. My thoughts were that there was no escape. The best I could do was protect myself by balling up into fetal postion. If I hadn’t been discovered I would have been found in the morning like they did that boy.”

As for why the bears attacked him, Lichty, whose upper body is scarred from the attack, has a simple answer: “They were given the opportunity. The polar bear is one of most aggressive animals in any environment and given the opportunity they’ll take it. I don’t hold it against the bears at all. I would say that they were totally acting normally. It would be expected behavior for them. They were not at fault.”

Contributing to this story were Nikki Finke, Gary Libman, Bob Sipchen and Janice Mall.