Ibex attack ruins girl's birthday - DodgeBoard.com

Dodgegal · #1 (**permalink**) 08-18-2006, 07:39 AM

What were her parents thinking? 6 year old does not need to see this. First minute or two, okay. But when the adults realized what was happening, they should have walked away to protect her, then get a member of the Zoo staff.

Ibex attack ruins girl's birthday
A birthday party went horribly wrong yesterday when a goat at the Winnipeg Zoo was killed by its herd in front of the birthday girl.

Terry Geiger and her boyfriend had taken Geiger's daughter, Angie, and a friend to the zoo for the six-year-old's birthday when two Alpine ibex goats started fighting in the enclosure in front of them.

"At first it was entertaining," Geiger said. "It was like watching the Discovery Channel but it just got worse and worse."

As the two goats went at each other, one was thrown off an incline and knocked out. As the goat came to it was attacked over and over by several other goats until the whole herd was chasing and knocking into it. The goat was knocked out three different times in the 20 minutes it took zookeepers to arrive, Geiger said.

Angie told her mom it was the worst day of her life as zookeepers finally hauled the mauled animal away in a wheelbarrow. Zoo officials could not immediately confirm the animal's death.

Geiger was upset staff weren't paying more attention to the animals after a zookeeper told her the goat was one of two ibex that had recently been added to the herd.

Zoo director Bob Wrigley seemed shocked to hear of the incident and denied there were any new animals at the zoo.

"This is very upsetting," Wrigley said when told of the incident. "But we haven't introduced any new animals for awhile."

Wrigley insisted all animals new to the zoo undergo a rigorous introduction process and are closely observed, sometimes for months.

Phil King, a foreman at the zoo, was also shocked and mystified to hear about the incident, saying this kind of behaviour is not at all usual of the species.