A one-year-old child lost part of his finger after sticking it into a rabbit enclosure at a Taoyuan petting zoo, with proprietor Chiang Chang-li (江長利) on Sunday saying that a finer mesh fence has already been installed to prevent similar incidents.
A Taoyuan woman on Friday brought her son to Goat World in the city’s Jhongli District (中壢), where visitors can feed a variety of farm animals, including about 20 rabbits.
The rabbit enclosure is surrounded by a metal fence with a sign warning visitors to refrain from sticking their fingers inside at the risk of being bitten, Chiang said.
Photo: Lee Jung-ping, Taipei Times
The incident occurred when the mother turned away to buy more animal feed, a witness said.
Staff immediately contacted emergency services and searched inside the enclosure for the fingertip, but were unable to find it, they said.
Emergency personnel were dispatched to the leisure farm at 2:55pm, where they discovered a boy surnamed Chiu (邱) conscious, but missing part of his left pinky, the Taoyuan Fire Department said.
After bandaging the wound, they sent the boy to a hospital, it added.
“People at the farm said they were searching for a severed finger at the rabbit enclosure. I also held my kid and helped look, but that little finger was nowhere to be found,” a visitor wrote on Facebook.
They were feeding the geese opposite the rabbit enclosure when a woman walked over, encouraging her son to come see the birds, the visitor said.
“After we finished feeding the first box, I went to buy a second one, but just as I was opening it, I heard the little boy cry out. When I looked up, I saw him at the rabbit enclosure and the rabbits were fighting over some food. His mother ran over from the feed machine as soon as she saw him crying,” they said.
As they are studying nursing, they volunteered to help the boy, and cleaned and applied pressure to the wound, the visitor said, adding that it was only after removing the bandage that they discovered the severity of the bite.
Chiang said that the farm would help the boy’s family file a travel insurance claim, adding that it was the first time such an incident has occurred at the establishment since it opened in 2004.
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