Three chimpanzees were killed and a fourth seriously injured last morning (early hours of December 16) in the Furuvik zoo (Sweden) as a result of shots fired by security agents who participated in the operation to capture these animals, fleeing from the primate enclosure on the afternoon of Wednesday the 14th.
Zoo officials have stated that after several hours of surveillance work on the five escaped chimpanzees and several failed attempts to get them back into their closed enclosure, they were forced to order them to be killed. The chimpanzees involved in the incident had escaped from the primate enclosure (for reasons still under investigation) but remained inside the Zoo. Several drones were used in the surveillance operation.
The fifth chimpanzee that escaped was unharmed, having returned to its enclosure of its own accord, while one of the chimpanzees that was shot is only wounded and is back in the primate enclosure. The remaining three chimpanzees of the Furuvik Zoo group have remained in the security enclosure at all times.
The police have launched an investigation and could accuse those responsible for the park of several infractions, one of them related to the animal protection law and the lack of security measures in the facilities occupied by the affected animals.
Various animal protection groups in Sweden and other countries (such as the Great Ape Project in Spain) have quickly shown their criticism of those responsible for the Furuvik zoo and what they consider to be the "massacre" of chimpanzees. The animalists consider, among other issues, that those responsible for the center were not prepared to capture the animals safely, for example, with anesthetic darts with which their death would have been avoided.
“This whole situation is tragic, in every way possible,” Annika Troselius, press officer for the company that owns the park, told Swedish television channel TV4. “It shouldn't have happened. We have to take full responsibility and investigate the facts,” she continued. Troselius denied a previous version of another source from the park itself that indicated that they did not have enough anesthetic darts for the escaped animals. According to the most recent official version, the zoo did not use these darts because it considered it too risky to get close enough to the animals to be able to shoot these types of darts.
“There was a communication failure. There is tranquilizer in the park but it was never an alternative to use it. Chimpanzees are high-risk animals and if there is danger to human life, the only alternative is to euthanize them, according to the risk group and the experts," Troselius said.
