Man Mauled By Orang-outang

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31060, 16 May 1966, Page 1

Man Mauled By Orang-outang

<New Zealand Press Association) AUCKLAND, May 15. A middle-aged man escaped serious injury when he was held by his arms for 10 minutes and mauled by a fullygrown orang-outang at the Auckland Zoo yesterday.

The man had climbed the barrier in front of its cage and tried to feed it biscuits. Onlookers saw the huge ape pin one of the man’s arms and then grab the other and begin to bite it. “It was horrible,” said Miss Valerie Belcher, of Beach Haven. “We saw the man climb over the barrier and thought he was a keeper. “As he stooped to pick up a packet of biscuits he had dropped the orang-outang grabbed him by an arm. Two men got over the fence to try to help, but there seemed to be nothing they could do.”

Some keepers turned a hose on the animal, which then let go. When brought back over the barrier he had climbed the man ran off, but he collapsed near the elephant house, where emergency firstaid treatment was given by the head keeper, Mr J. Brooks. The zoo’s director, Mr D. Wood, said the man was lucky not to have lost an arm. “The orang-outang is probably one of the most vicious animals in the zoo,” he said. “It considers any space around its cage as its own territory.”