An orangutan escaped from a Taiwanese zoo and terrified patrons at a nearby restaurant Wednesday, overturning picnic tables and motorbikes and forcing terrified diners to cower inside the eatery.
The orangutan, who pushed his way out of his cage before wandering into the restaurant, was subdued when an official shot him with a tranquilizer dart. He was carted off for treatment in the scoop of a small bulldozer.
Wednesday's incident occurred six weeks after a 440-pound crocodile chewed the forearm off a veterinarian at the same zoo. The vet's limb was reattached in a seven-hour surgery.
Orangutans are native to the forests of Malaysia and Indonesia. They have a shaggy, reddish-brown coat, long arms and no tail.
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Monday, May 21, 2007
Zoo: when animals attack 3
A 57-year-old Dutch woman who was attacked by a gorilla at a Rotterdam zoo said the ape was still her favorite even though she felt she was going to die when he bit her.
"I go to the zoo almost every day with my husband, and we're always going to see Bokito. I even have pictures and videos from Berlin when he was only four months old," the woman told Dutch mass-circulation daily Telegraaf.
"He is and remains my darling," the paper quoted the woman as saying from her hospital bed, where she is being treated for bite wounds and a broken arm and wrist. The 11-year old male gorilla burst out of its enclosure on Friday and went on a rampage in the zoo's cafeteria before being recaptured.
"I stood by the small apes in the Africa section when I heard a thud behind me. I turned around and there was Bokito. I had nowhere to go. He gripped me, sat on me with his full weight and began biting me," the woman told the Telegraaf.
"I could only think 'O God, I'm going to die, I'm going to die'."
The Telegraaf said people had since come from across the country to Rotterdam Zoo to see the gorilla.
"I go to the zoo almost every day with my husband, and we're always going to see Bokito. I even have pictures and videos from Berlin when he was only four months old," the woman told Dutch mass-circulation daily Telegraaf.
"He is and remains my darling," the paper quoted the woman as saying from her hospital bed, where she is being treated for bite wounds and a broken arm and wrist. The 11-year old male gorilla burst out of its enclosure on Friday and went on a rampage in the zoo's cafeteria before being recaptured.
"I stood by the small apes in the Africa section when I heard a thud behind me. I turned around and there was Bokito. I had nowhere to go. He gripped me, sat on me with his full weight and began biting me," the woman told the Telegraaf.
"I could only think 'O God, I'm going to die, I'm going to die'."
The Telegraaf said people had since come from across the country to Rotterdam Zoo to see the gorilla.
Friday, May 18, 2007
TCM Singapore Zoo
Acupuncture for a limping elephant? Herbal tea for a constipated orangutan? The Singapore Zoo has tried it all, and it works.
Around 200 animals, including giraffes, elephants, horses, pythons and sea lions, have successfully been treated with acupuncture and traditional herb-based Chinese medicine in the past decade, although Western medicine remains the first line of treatment in the zoo.
"The Western medicine did not always work, so we had to find other solutions," Oh Soon Hock, a senior veterinarian at the zoo told Reuters on Friday.
Earlier this week the zoo received a S$30,000 ($19,700) grant for further research into traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) for animals from a Singapore-based firm that produces TCM.
Oh -- who was trained in Western veterinarian medicine but also studied Chinese medicine -- said this sort of healing is typically used after Western medicine fails to produce results.
He said an orangutan who had received modern medication for constipation for more than a year recovered after drinking an ancient Chinese brew of herbs, ground and dissolved in its honey drink, for just one week.
The zoo has also used acupuncture to reduce the swelling around the fractured leg of a sedated cheetah.
Treating an elephant with acupuncture requires some industrial-size needles to pierce its 2.5 centimeter (one inch) thick hide and sometimes through 15 centimeters of muscles.
The custom-made stainless steel needles are 15 to 20 cm long and 0.6 mm (0.024 inch) thick, Oh said.
"We use stainless steel needles because they bend but won't break," Oh said, adding that the needles need to pierce through the hide and muscles to get close to the bones for the treatment to be most effective.
Acupuncture, an ancient Chinese treatment, stimulates blood circulation by sticking needles at specific points of the body through which the body's energy flows.
According to Chinese medicine, the blood carries "qi", or body energy, that flows along pathways through the body. Acupuncture stimulates the blood by stimulating the "qi".
Around 200 animals, including giraffes, elephants, horses, pythons and sea lions, have successfully been treated with acupuncture and traditional herb-based Chinese medicine in the past decade, although Western medicine remains the first line of treatment in the zoo.
"The Western medicine did not always work, so we had to find other solutions," Oh Soon Hock, a senior veterinarian at the zoo told Reuters on Friday.
Earlier this week the zoo received a S$30,000 ($19,700) grant for further research into traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) for animals from a Singapore-based firm that produces TCM.
Oh -- who was trained in Western veterinarian medicine but also studied Chinese medicine -- said this sort of healing is typically used after Western medicine fails to produce results.
He said an orangutan who had received modern medication for constipation for more than a year recovered after drinking an ancient Chinese brew of herbs, ground and dissolved in its honey drink, for just one week.
The zoo has also used acupuncture to reduce the swelling around the fractured leg of a sedated cheetah.
Treating an elephant with acupuncture requires some industrial-size needles to pierce its 2.5 centimeter (one inch) thick hide and sometimes through 15 centimeters of muscles.
The custom-made stainless steel needles are 15 to 20 cm long and 0.6 mm (0.024 inch) thick, Oh said.
"We use stainless steel needles because they bend but won't break," Oh said, adding that the needles need to pierce through the hide and muscles to get close to the bones for the treatment to be most effective.
Acupuncture, an ancient Chinese treatment, stimulates blood circulation by sticking needles at specific points of the body through which the body's energy flows.
According to Chinese medicine, the blood carries "qi", or body energy, that flows along pathways through the body. Acupuncture stimulates the blood by stimulating the "qi".
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)