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[Joe Garden <joegarden AT yahoo.com>]

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010205/od/gorilla_dc_1.html

Reuters

Monday February 5 9:30 AM ET 

Gorilla Escapes, Devours Junk Food 

   PITTSBURGH (Reuters) - Zookeepers in Pittsburgh are
trying to figure out how a gorilla got loose and
managed to make a pig of herself by wolfing down
muffins, cherry pastries and soda pop at a concession
area normally reserved for humans.

   About 250 people cowered inside nearby buildings at
the Pittsburgh Zoo & Aquarium for 45 minutes, after
the 150-pound (68 kg) female gorilla escaped from an
outdoor exhibit by crossing a wide moat and scaling a
14-foot (4.2-meter) wall to freedom.

   The animal, which is only 3-1/2 feet (one-meter)
tall and is not considered a public danger, quickly
found her way to the zoo's outdoor concession area on
Sunday afternoon and began digging through overflowing
trash cans.

   ``She seemed to especially like the Orange Slice''
soda pop, Barbara Baker, the zoo president and chief
executive, told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

   Zookeepers finally lured her into a women's
lavatory, where they injected her with a tranquilizer.

   No one was ever in danger from the unnamed gorilla,
the first to escape from the zoo's decade-old Tropical
Forest Complex and make it to what one zookeeper
described as ``the wrong side of the monkey house.''

   Members of the zoo's Animal Escape Team believe the
animal may have climbed to freedom on a bamboo stalk
that had fallen into a waterless moat which surrounds
the gorilla exhibit.

   The gorilla was later reported to be in good shape,
though zookeepers feared she may experience some
nausea as a result of the anesthesia and the junk
food, a drastic change from her diet of fruit and
monkey chow.


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