Orang Escape Closes Oz Zoo

An Australian zoo was evacuated Sunday, May 10, 2009, when a “notorious” (as characterized in media reports) orangutan escaped her enclosure by short-circuiting an electric fence.

Adelaide zoo officials said patrons were evacuated as a precaution hours after the 26-year-old Karta (shown above) escaped.

Karta gained access to a side garden-bed, where she caught hold of a stick and used it to short-circuit the electric wires around her enclosure before piling up some more sticks to climb out.

The incident comes after the recent death of her former mate Pusung on April 15, 2009, but keepers do not believe that sparked this escape attempt. (Now why won’t the death of her mate create upset and behavior disruption?)

Staff will now carry out an extensive review of the enclosure’s security to ensure Karta, or her current mate Kluet, do not outsmart the system again.

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Loren Coleman About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct). Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015. Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.

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