Gotha🎐m’s zoos are loaded for bear — with weapons on hand and specially trained marksmen ready to take out ferocious animals in case a human life is at risk.
At the city’s five major zoos — one in each borough — a cache of rifles, revolvers and dart guns a🐟re kept at the ready.
♏“Every zoo has someone on 𝄹staff who is capable and prepared to use a gun,” said John Caltabiano, the former executive director of the Staten Island Zoo.
At the Bronx Zoo, “five first responders . . . are trained to use deadly ꩲforce,” said a zookeeper the🍰re last week.
Both the Bronx and Central Park zoos use rifles 🎶and shotguns for the most menacing animals.
“If som♚eone fell in with the bears or snow leopards, a shotgun would be used,” said a maintenance worker 𝓀at the Central Park Zoo.
At the smaller Staten Island Zoo, where the most dangerous animal is an A♉mur leopard, a revolver is the weapon of ꦛchoice.
The zoo snipers train at firing ranges, strategically stor🎐e the weapons on zoo grounds, and are well-versed on the potential damage that an animal can cause.
After a 3-year-old boy fell 𒆙into a gorilla’s enc🍌losure at the Cincinnati Zoo on May 28, prompting a zoo mark🎐sman to shoot the ape, Harambe, to death, New York City zoos are being extra cautious.
“We had a meeting to🐼 talk about how to respond to a situation like that af🥃ter it happened,” the Bronx zookeeper said.
The 265-acre Bronx Zoo is home to grizzly and polar beaꦯrs, gorillas, lions and tigers.
“As 𒀰much as you love the animals, there is always that underlying rule of thumb: safety first for human beings,” Calt𒊎abiano said.
Caltabiano said he would le𝄹an on his curator for expert advice, but the final decision on whether to kill an animal endangering a person would be “on me.”
“If it was a lifesaving situation, the curator would designate a shooter or [if there wa🔥sn’t time] he would do it himself,” the former zoo dire🏅ctor said. “The point is there’s always someone who knows how, when and what has to be done to put down an animal.”
🉐The NYPD is always called i𝕴n such situations, as well.
Firearms are used instead of tranquilizers in life-threatening sit🦩uations because “there’s no way to predict how an animal will react to a sedative. Some animals don’t respond at all to a tranquilizer,” a Bronx zookeeper said.
Every zoo worker is required to go through rigorous training for how to respond to potenti🗹ally deadly situations at least every few months, a Bronx zookeeper saiꦅd.
“We would always have safety meetings on a monthly basis🐭 to determine if everything was going well,” Caltabiano said. “Sometimes, there would be drills in the event something happened. If someone got a snake bite, we had drills on how to get them [by helicopter or ambulanc👍e] to Jacobi Medical Center in The Bronx.”
He sa⭕id they estimated it taking 25 minutes by ambulance.
The Wildlife Conservation Society, which runs the Bronꦐx, Queens, Central Park and Prospect Park zoos, declined to comment.