Howletts will be replacing all wooden gates for dogs and small cats following the “unprecedented” escape of eight wild dogs from their enclosure last week.
The dholes’ enclosure was secured with a double porch system with a wooden door leading into a small corridor that was in turn secured with a chain link gate.
In just one night, the animals managed to chew through both the wooden door and the chain link gate, and eight escaped into the park.
Howletts’ animal director Neil Spooner said: “It’s unprecedented. The wooden porch system has been in place for years. Why they decided to break out that night I couldn’t honestly tell you.
“I could speculate and say that at this time of year a lot of females might be coming into oestrous and this would increase their activity but that happens every year.”
Big cat enclosures already have metal doors, but like many zoos across the country, small cats and dogs’ enclosures only had wooden doors.
The park will now replace all its wooden doors securing small cats and dogs with metal ones.
Mr Spooner said that once the dholes were out of the park there was little they could do besides shoot them despite the best efforts of keepers to re-capture the endangered animals alive.
He said: “Keepers tried to herd the animals back into their enclosure, but they refused to go in. They then attempted to shoot the dogs with tranquiliser darts to put them to sleep, but this also failed.
“There were too many of them. When we fired at one, the rest panicked and that’s when several actually escaped from the park itself.”
A pack of 20 Asiatic wild dogs, or dholes, lived at Howletts but at 9.30am on Wednesday, February 11, keepers discovered that eight were missing.
Five were contained in the park, but three escaped into the surrounding area. One was shot by a police marksman on Thursday and another was hit by a train.
The last was killed by police on Friday morning in Littlebourne after being spotted by a dog walker.
Four others loose in the park were tranquilised but one had to be put down after it was discovered it had a broken leg.
The public were warned not to approach the dogs, which are similar in size and appearance to foxes, but Mr Spooner said the public were in no danger from the small wild dogs.
He said: “In my opinion, which is probably shared by the vast majority of zoos up and down the country, the risk to the public was zero.
“They were captive animals. When they got out of their familiar surroundings they would have been frightened and disorientated and would have just wanted to get away from people.
“And they are pack animals, who normally operate in packs of up to 20. Alone they would have none of the bravado that comes from being surrounded by other members of the pack. They were lost souls really.”
Mr Spooner criticised reports in other publications that made exaggerated claims as to the danger posed by the dogs.
One paper even said that two dholes could “bring down a baby elephant” which the experienced zoo manager described as “galacticly untrue.”
Dhole fact file
DHOLES are similar to African wild dogs but originate from Southern Asia.
There are only around 2,500 Dholes in the left in the world, many of them in animal parks.
The remaining wild population is found in Pakistan and India, Russia and Thailand.
Attacks on humans are rare, but it has been known if the animals are cornered or hungry.
Hunting of the wild dogs in India was stopped in 1972 after the Dhole was declared a protected species.
The only exceptions to killing the wild dogs is in self-defence or if a pack kills a human being.
Dholes, although not classed as fast runners, are known for their stamina.
They can pursue prey for hours until their target is overcome with exhaustion.
Their main diet in the wild consists of deer, wild pigs, sheep and antelope and they typically weigh around 20 kilos.
POSTED: 19/02/2009 14:00:00
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