A zookeeper has been taken to hospital after being mauled by an escaped black bear. The beast managed to “breach its exhibit” and had a face-off with the man on Wednesday as a lethal weapons team rushed to his aid.
Jacksonville Zoo and Gardens in Florida said the Jonny the bear escaped its enclosure on a non-customer-facing section at around 5pm local time.
Jonny then attacked the zookeeper, leaving the lethal weapons team “no choice but to shoot the bear”.
The five-year-old American Black Bear died at the scene as the keeper was taken to hospital.
He is expected to make a full recovery, while the zoo carries out an investigation after Jonny’s escape.
The average American black bear weighs between 60 and 300 kilograms and is around 130 to 190 centimeters (50 to 75 inches) tall.
Speaking after the horror incident, a spokesperson for the zoo said they were devastated about the attack.
“We love wildlife and our staff has a huge passion for animals as well,” they said.
“Our animal care team has cared for these animals for years. So this is something that is very disheartening to us to have to face a situation like this.”
After being asked if there were other methods that could have been taken to de-escalate, they said shooting the bear was “standard operating procedure when it comes to protecting the safety of humans”.
“So of course with a bear of that size, the first thing is that we’re protecting a human’s life,” they said.
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According to Pet Keen, there are on average about 40 brown bear attacks that happen around the world every year.
While attacks are rare, and fatal ones are even rarer, data from the digital library JSTOR shows that between 2020 to 2022, there were eight fatal grizzly bear attacks in North America.
It comes after a man shot himself in the leg after a Sawtooth Mountains stand off with a grizzly.
Lee Francis, 65, from Wyoming, was just 10ft away from the bear when the 700-pound beast charged towards him.
The mountaineer whipped out his pistol to try and shoot the bear, but he instead shot himself.
