Dozens of animals escaped from a wild-life preserve that houses bears, big cats and other beasts, and the owner was later found dead, said police, who shot several of the animals and urged nearby residents to stay indoors.
The fences had been left unsecured on Tuesday at the Muskingum County Animal Farm in Zanesville, Ohio, and the animals’ cages were open, police said. They would not say what animals escaped, but said the preserve had lions, tigers, cheetahs, wolves, giraffes, camels and bears. They said bears and wolves were among 25 escaped animals that had been shot and killed, and there were multiple sightings of exotic animals along a nearby highway.
“These are wild animals that you would see on TV in Africa,” Sheriff Matt Lutz warned at a press conference.
Danielle White, whose father’s property abuts the animal preserve, said she did not see loose animals this time, but that she did in 2006, when a lion escaped.
“It’s always been a fear of mine knowing [the preserve’s owner] had all those animals,” she said. “I have kids. I’ve heard a male lion roar all night.”
Lutz called the escaped animals “mature, very big, aggressive,” but said a caretaker told authorities the preserve’s 48 animals had been fed on Monday.
He said police were patrolling the 16 hectare farm and the surrounding areas in cars, not on foot, and were concerned about big cats and bears hiding in the dark and in trees.
“This is a bad situation,” Lutz said. “It’s been a situation for a long time.”
Lutz said his office started getting phone calls at about 5:30pm that wild animals were loose just west of Zanesville on a road that runs under Interstate 70.
He said four deputies with assault rifles in a pickup truck went to the farm, where they found the owner, Terry Thompson, dead and all the animal cage doors open. He would not say how Thompson died, but said several aggressive animals were near his body when deputies arrived and they had to be shot.
Thompson, who lived on the property, had orangutans and chimps in his home, but those were still in their cages, Lutz said.
The deputies, who saw many other animals standing outside their cages and others that had escaped past the fencing surrounding the property, began shooting them on sight. They said there had been no reports of injuries among the public.
Staffers from Columbus Zoo went to the scene, hoping to tranquilize and capture the animals. The sheriff said caretakers might put food in the animals’ open cages to try to lure them back.
Lutz said people should stay indoors. At least four school districts in the area canceled classes.
He said his main concern was protecting the public in the rural area, where homes sit on large lots of sometimes four hectares.
“Any kind of cat species or bear species is what we are concerned about,” Lutz said. “We don’t know how much of a head start these animals have on us.”
A spokeswoman for the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, which usually handles native wildlife, such as deer, said Division of Wildlife officers were helping the sheriff’s office cope with the exotic animals in Zanesville, a city of about 25,000 residents.
“This is, I would say, unique,” spokeswoman Laura Jones said.
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