Zoo partners with SWAT team for animal emergencies

By Tom Buckham
NEWS STAFF REPORTERS
Updated: February 28, 2010

Over its 135-year history, the Buffalo Zoo has never needed a sharpshooter to confront a predator on the loose.

And though it doesn’t expect to confront that scenario anytime soon, the zoo is asking the Buffalo Police Department’s Special Weapons and Tactics team to be ready to answer the call, just in case.

Members of the police unit have toured the Delaware Park zoological gardens to familiarize themselves with the layout — especially exhibits containing dangerous animals—and a memorandum of understanding between the zoo and the police is being readied, zoo President Donna M. Fernandes said.

The arrangement will include an emergency phone line to the SWAT team, she said.

Rifles always have been kept handy on zoo grounds, and the staff invariably included one or more marksmen capable of dealing with an animal escape or an attack on a keeper. Firing a sedative dart to immobilize the critter would be the preferred course of action.

But never has a bear, lion, tiger or other dangerous critter escaped from its habitat or otherwise posed a threat to the public or zoo workers.

“We’ve been lucky,” Fernandes said.

Deadly force was required once — in 1979, when police were forced to shoot two polar bears to death after an inebriated intruder climbed into their enclosure one night and was mauled.

The changing face of the zoo staff, which is now mostly female, led the zoo to approach the Police Department, which always had jurisdiction in the event a wild animal left the zoo grounds, about responding to an emergency inside the gates.

“We had a lot more hunters on the staff when it was 75 percent men,” Fernandes said. “There were at least 10 when I came here 10 years ago.”

Some of those men remain, and a few female employees are experienced shooters, too, she said. In addition, the staff receives regular training for emergencies.

But most employees are only present during the workday, while SWAT members can respond to a dangerous situation at any hour, Fernandes said.

“We want to make sure we have adequate coverage around the clock, seven days a week,” she said.

http://www.buffalonews.com/2010/02/28/972172/zoo-partners-with-swat-team-for.html