Cheetahs swim for freedom

BY IAN STEWARD

Three cheetahs escaped from their enclosure and roamed in the public area for half an hour at Christchurch's Orana Wildlife Park.

No-one was hurt, but Orana chief executive Lynn Anderson described yesterday's breach as "the most serious incident we've ever had".

Lucy Tame, 25, of Christchurch, and her mother, Margaret Tame, took photographs as the three male cats broke with usual behaviour and swam across the moat around the edge of their enclosure about 12.30pm yesterday.

"They swam across and sat next to the fence about one or two metres away from us," Lucy Tame said.

The animals' proximity seemed unusual.

The women felt uncomfortable, so they left and boarded a zoo shuttle.

"The next thing we knew they were running across in front of the shuttle," she said.

Anderson said that the shuttle driver had told park rangers the cheetahs were loose in the park, triggering emergency lockdown procedures.

All visitors were taken to safe places, and keepers were sent to catch the animals, along with a veterinarian with a tranquilliser gun, but the cheetahs were able to be shepherded into their enclosure without incident, she said.

"If they had looked like breaching the boundary fence, we would have shot to kill."

Anderson said the three cheetahs had been born and raised at the park and had always avoided water. The enclosure fence was being fixed and an undetected hole had been made that the cheetahs found, she said.

"We're discussing what would have been the motivator when these particular cats don't like water."

It was unusual that the cats had swum for the first time on the day that the fence was able to be breached. They were not trying to escape the park.

She was glad there were witnesses to the swim as staff would have been left wondering how the cheetahs had got across.

The cheetahs were well fed and posed little danger to people, she said.

- © Fairfax NZ News