Nine wolves escaped from their Sunday enclosure while this animal park, located about 35 kilometers from Albi, was open. This “security problem” justified the closure of the zoo until mid-January.
Le Monde with AFP
An Animal Park of Tarn has been closed until mid-January after nine wolves escaped their enclosure. Four were slaughtered and five other anestheties, we learned, Friday, December 24, from the prefecture and zoo.
“There was an incident with a pack of wolves that did not behave normally”, Sunday at the Zoo of the three valleys in Montdon-Labessonié, said the Secretary General of the Prefecture of the Tarn, Fabien Chollet. “The owner had to make four wolves shoot down and used the services of the state to anesthetize the other five,” he said.
The incident occurred while this animal park, located about 35 kilometers from Albi, was open. “There was no big world in the zoo and at no time was the public immediately endangered,” said Chollet, adding that this “security problem”, however, justified the closure of the zoo, effective since Thursday and “until the security conditions become normal”.
Visitors have not been threatened
The owner of the park, Savior Ferrara, said the wolves, “who had just arrived,” escaped from their enclosure, “after destroying the safety hatches”, and have penetrated in adjacent parks, But did not leave the zoo enclosure.
“Nine wolves (…) came out of their night enclosures where they were locked up for observation, before we decided to let go of them in their vast day park,” he said in a statement. “They then gave up this day, as well as two other contiguous parks (…) designed to accommodate other wolf packs (…). They never left this enclosure set “Ferrara said.
He added that against “abnormal and dangerous behavior of some of them (…), four wolves have alas had to be slaughtered by the park staff”. Stressing that “at no time” the wolves “were in touch or represented a threat to the visitors and for the agents of the park”, he said that he had been carried out “immediate evacuation of the public “.
already struck with a closing measure in 2020
While the three valleys’ website posted on Friday the message “Due to urgent work, the zoo is closed from December 23 to mid-January 2022”, the director promised a “reopening in the best conditions”.
This animal park, which welcomes 60 hectares some 600 animals of 70 species, of which great felines, had already been struck on October 22, 2020 of a ministerial administrative closure measure, because of “major breaches. “endangering the safety of animals, staff and visitors.
But the prefectural decree had been suspended on 2 November following by the Toulouse Administrative Court, “because of the serious and manifestly illegal involvement in the right of ownership, the freedom of undertaking and the freedom of the Trade and Industry “, lack of prior notice, according to a court statement. The owner had then denounced a “fierceness” of the authorities against him.