A two-tonne male hippopotamus escaped from Kaohsiung's Shoushan Zoo Friday morning, seriously injuring another hippo, a zookeeper and avoiding capture during a six-hour standoff with city government officials.
The hippo escaped from its pen during a fight with three other males following feeding time on Friday.
When the zookeeper was attending to an injured male hippo, one escaped by climbing on another animal's back and jumping over the wall. It then attacked zookeeper Chiu-Wu Kuei-hsiang (
Chiu-Wu was sent for emergency surgery to a hospital in Kaohsiung where she is now in stable condition.
After running 200m and knocking over a scooter, the hippo charged into the zoo's bird garden and was surrounded by zoo employees.
After six hours evading 100 zookeepers and city government employees, it was shot with a stun gun dozens of times but failed to calm down.
In the afternoon, veterinarians from Taipei arrived with a high-powered stun gun and subdued the hippo with three shots. It was then hauled back to its pen with a crane.
The veterinarians called the hippo "highly aggressive," and ordered zookeepers to keep the animal under observation for the next two days.
Zoo officials kept the hippo isolated yesterday, telling TV news reporters they feared for its "psychological state." This is the first time an animal has escaped from the zoo during its 20 years of operations.
No visitors were in the zoo at the time, as it has been closed to the public since the last foot-and-mouth disease scare in February.
It reopened to the public yesterday.
Kaohsiung City Government has ordered an investigation into the incident.
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