Having a zoo animal escape its enclosure can be a terrifying experience. Officials at Australia’s Melbourne Zoo assured the public that no baboons escaped after a false alarm caused the facility to go into lockdown for 10 minutes.
Visitors to the zoo, located in Victoria, Australia, on January 1, 2023, said they were taken to secure areas by zoo staff after it was rumored that a Hamadryas baboon had escaped its enclosure. Glenn Roberts was visiting the zoo and posted on X about his experience.
Roberts claimed that a baboon did get out and that it took around 10 minutes to get the animal back in its enclosure. In reality, the lockdown was lifted after less than 10 minutes and zoo officials explained the escaped animal alert had been triggered by mistake.
“Melbourne Zoo went into lockdown for less than 10 minutes this afternoon when an Emergency Alert was mistakenly activated,” a zoo representative said in a statement. “There was no emergency and visitors were able to continue enjoying their Zoo visit.”
The representative said officials are still investigating how the alert came to be triggered by mistake.
Source: https://twitter.com/roo181/status/1742009266670796861