Dear United States Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (USDA-APHIS), Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA), and World Association of Zoos and Aquariums (WAZA),

In light of recent events where endangered animals were killed after visitors entered a zoo enclosure (Harambe in the US and two lions in Chile), please work to strengthen and publicize your standardized emergency protocol for handling these types of situations. Following the likes of the military and hospital rapid response teams, zoos could start to rely more on an established series of steps to help make wise, executive decisions during emotionally stressful times.  Please collaborate with zookeepers and animal experts from around the world to develop best-practice protocols detailing how to respond when dangerous animals escape and when humans unexpectedly enter enclosures. Your findings will help elevate vague, sub-par policies at certain zoos and will reaffirm the work already done by a more established zoo.

AZA’s 2016 Accreditation Standards currently has less than 5 pages addressed to safety/security. Here are the most applicable passages:

 11.5.2. All areas housing venomous animals, or animals which pose a serious threat of catastrophic injury and/or death (e.g. large carnivores, large reptiles, medium to large primates, large hoofstock, killer whales, sharks, venomous animals, and others, etc.) must be equipped with appropriate alarm systems, and/or have protocols and procedures in place which will notify staff in the event of a bite injury, attack, or escape from the enclosure. These systems and/or protocols and procedures must be routinely checked to insure proper functionality, and periodic drills must be conducted to insure that appropriate staff members are notified. (See 11.2.5 and 11.7.4 for other required drills.)

11.5.3. Institutions maintaining potentially dangerous animals (e.g. large carnivores, large reptiles, medium to large primates, large hoofstock, killer whales, sharks, venomous animals, and others, etc.) must have appropriate safety procedures in place to prevent attacks and injuries by these animals. Appropriate response procedures must also be in place to deal with an attack resulting in an injury. These procedures must be practiced routinely per the emergency drill requirements contained in these standards. Whenever injuries result from these incidents, a written account outlining the cause of the incident, how the injury was handled, and a description of any resulting changes to either the safety procedures or the physical facility must be prepared and maintained for five years from the date of the incident.

11.6.2. Security personnel, whether staff of the institution, or a provided and/or contracted service, must be trained to handle all emergencies in full accordance with the policies and procedures of the institution. In some cases, it is recognized that Security personnel may be in charge of the respective emergency (i.e. shooting teams).

11.6.3. Stored firearms must be in a locked cabinet of sufficient construction and design to impede unauthorized entry, and located in a secure area and accessible only to authorized personnel trained in their use. Explanation: Personnel authorized to utilize firearms should have professional training and regular practice.

These standards are a good start, but they clearly need to be reviewed and revised. The appropriate alarm systems, security systems, safety/response procedures, and trainings AZA references are not specified. All of these important decisions are then left for the zoos to decide upon. Yes, it’s impossible to prepare and plan for every possible scenario at every zoo, but establishing a relatively universal procedure based on research and expert opinion will help the zoos, the animals, and the public.  The following are suggestions for what the new revisions should cover.

1. There should probably be a different protocol for apes, bears, and big cats.  These animals pose the biggest threats in an unexpected encounter and it’s assumed that each of these groupings present a slightly different risk and could respond differently to certain relief tactics, such as luring with food, scaring away with noises, using tranquilizer darts, etc.
2. Each protocol should speak to at least several different scenarios, such as the particular behavior being exhibited by the animal, age of the person, devices available, staff present, etc.
3. The policies should include the minimum and maximum dosage and ideal combination of tranquilizing agents to be used for specific species.
4. Average lengths of times for tranquilizers to take effect for several size/weight ranges should be stated based on evidence for specific species (when available).
5. From these evidence-based times, the AZA standards should extrapolate the specific circumstances for when a gun (with the intent to instantaneously kill the animal) should be the first option used.
6. The plans should address public panic which compounds the situation by further aggravating and confusing the animals; like how visitors can quickly notify zoo staff of an emergent situation with minimal yelling and how staff can encourage the crowd to avoid screaming
7. The ideal type of barrier (net, glass, fence, cage, etc.) for the specific species should be included.
8. Stemming from Jane Goodall’s question, the plans need to address how the other animals in the enclosure should be tended to in the days following an emergency killing.    
9. Lastly, please recommend that zoos close their exhibit while an investigation and complete review of safety protocols is underway.

Your organizations could also be encouraging new research on methods to quickly stun a wild animal from afar and techniques to making tranquilizer darts more fast-acting.

 Zoos have been around for a long time and children are almost always present, making safety and awareness paramount. Born Free USA, a nonprofit animal advocacy group, maintains a database that has logged over 405 similar incidents at AZA accredited zoos alone.  If zoos are here to stay, then the emergency protocols should be strengthened and made available to the public. A lot of the recent outcry stemmed from our lack of understanding in regards to tranquilizers, animal behavior, and current zoo practices. If after extensive review, it's made clear that with today’s technology an endangered animal will most likely need to be killed if a visitor enters its enclosure, even when the animal is not explicitly attacking the individual, then at least it will be less of a shock and surprise for the public to find out.

Developing new protocols in order to have a more expected response in the future would be a more efficient use of time than continuing to speculate, judge, and blame. While keeping the interest of both the visitors' and endangered animals' safety at heart, please combine your forces and work together on improving the response to these rare, but unfortunate events.