Louisville Zoo: Our gorilla exhibit safe

The nightmare scenario faced over the weekend at the Cincinnati Zoo is one that zoo officials here fear but try to prepare for -- visitors who find themselves literally face to face with a wild animal, a Louisville Zoo spokesman said Tuesday.

In Cincinnati on Saturday, a four-year-old boy survived an encounter with a fully-grown gorilla because a quick-response team at the scene killed the ape that was dragging the child around its enclosure like a rag doll. They decided they didn't have time to let a tranquilizer dart take effect, though many have criticized the zoo's handling of the situation and the parents for not keeping a closer watch on the four-year-old.

“The reality is there is no playbook,” said Steve Taylor, Louisville Zoo's assistant director of conservation, education and collections. “But you just have to be able to understand the animal you’re dealing with and what the situation around it is and make the decision at that point.”

The local zoo also has an emergency response team, which drills several times a year for situations similar to the one in Cincinnati. They train with the Louisville Metro Police Department with high-powered weapons, and the team is prepared to use tranquilizers or "lethal force," Taylor said during a news conference at the zoo.

“We are talking about potentially dangerous wild animals that we keep and so our goal is to make sure that we keep guests safe, staff safe and the animals safe," Taylor said. "We like to practice and have all of our tools available so we can achieve that and we’ve got a great safety record here we are really proud of and we want to maintain that.”

“I have no doubt they made the best call at that point in time given the circumstances they were looking at,” Taylor said of the Cincinnati Zoo team. "(They are) tremendous professionals."

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Taylor said the Louisville staff monitors such incidents around the world and re-evaluates its procedures accordingly.

The Cincinnati Zoo has mostly outdoor viewing -- the first exhibit in North America to allow gorillas to be seen outside.The Louisville situation is different.

“It would be very, very difficult to get inside our gorilla exhibit," Taylor said. "You’d have to break three panes of safety glass to get through."

When the local exhibit was built, Taylor said, the zoo looked at every gorilla exhibit in the world and came up with a design it felt was safe for both gorillas and guests. Louisville's Gorilla Forest opened in 2002 and has two outdoor and three indoor viewing areas. Most of the viewing is through safety glass, accept one moated overlook, where guests can see the exhibit from a distance.

The Louisville Zoo has 10 Western lowland gorillas, including one baby born in March.

Taylor said no matter where a person is, whether it be a shopping mall, an amusement park or at home, there’s always an inherent risk.

“We go to great lengths to make the park as safe and comfortable as possible,” he said. “We also, at the same time, want to give our guests the opportunity to experience some of the rarest animals on the planet.”

Throughout the Louisville facility, the staff constantly reinforces that guests follow zoo rules and stay on the paths.

“These aren’t pets; they are wild animals and they will act like wild animals, and we actually encourage them to want to be wild,” he said.

In the case of gorillas, Taylor noted, “They can take something like a coconut and just crush it, break it open real easily, so they are tremendously strong but they can also be very gentle.”

In Cincinnati, a zoo spokesman told the Associated Press the decision to kill the gorilla was the right one. He said the gorilla was agitated and disoriented by the commotion during the 10 minutes after the boy fell in to the enclosure.

A Cincinnati police spokesman said no charges against the parents are being considered.

Bobby Shipman can be reached at rshipmaniv@courier-journal.com or 502-582-7079.