Gorillas escape enclosed space at Como Zoo, now secure

Updated 5:45 p.m.

A trio of gorillas got out of their enclosure and into a staging area in a Como Zoo building this morning.

Zoo officials say that the 15-year-old gorillas never reached the public at the St. Paul zoo.

They apparently discovered an unsecured door in their exhibit and started to explore, 10 minutes before the zoo opened at 10 a.m.

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A gorilla tried a door at the back of his habitat and found it unlocked. His two comrades followed him through the door and into a space that connects to the habitat of their cousins, the orangutans.

The three gorillas are the zoo's "bachelor boys" group. The biggest weighs about 450 pounds.

When zookeepers discovered the trio's escape, they activated an emergency plan to protect the public and the animals, locked down the zoo and prepared tranquilizers, senior zookeeper Allison Jungheim told reporters this afternoon.

"All of the zookeepers are trained as well as the two senior keepers and the general curator," she said. "And we also call our zoo veterinarian in from the University of Minnesota. And we go forth."

None of that was necessary. The bachelor gorillas all voluntarily returned to their habitats within the hour.

Two of them went back after 20 minutes, while a 450-pound gorilla named Virgil stayed in the hallway outside his habitat and raided a closet containing toys and snacks, Jungheim said. Virgil also returned to his habitat after less than an hour.

"Any of our animals, if given an opportunity to explore a space not in their own area, are, going to check it out," Jungheim said. "They're more than likely going to be very hesitant, Virgil didn't even go as far as we anticipated he would go within a contained space."

Although the gorillas returned to their exhibit on their own shortly, zookeepers were prepared to use a tranquilizer gun or other means to stop the gorillas if necessary, she said.

"It's a matter of securing the animals if we can, securing the public if the public is around and doing whatever we can to get the animals and the people safe as best as we can," she said.

Zoo officials said no staff or members of the public were ever in danger and that even the portion of the building the gorillas wandered into was secure.

The zoo opened a new, $11 million open-air gorilla exhibit last year. That was in part to replace a previous exhibit that another gorilla escaped in 1994.

The zoo released this timeline on the incident:

At 9:50 this morning a radio call was made that the bachelor group of three gorillas had left their indoor enclosure through an unsecured door behind the scenes of the indoor gorilla habitat. The gorillas were always secured within the building and within gorilla proof barriers. Como Park Zoo and Conservatory does not open to the public until 10 a.m. and those on the grounds were secured into safe areas.

At 10:10 two of the three gorillas (Sampson and Jabir) were secured in their habitat. The third, Virgil, was still exploring the inside secured area.

At 10:40 Virgil moved into the habitat.

Como Staff has a detailed Emergency Response procedure that includes animal escape situations and that are practiced regularly. The Como Emergency response team moved into position to successfully mitigate the situation and at no time was the public, staff, or animals ever in danger.

MPR News Reporter Jon Collins contributed to this report.