The older polar bear, a 26-year-old male named Little One, wandered into an inappropriate area along with a 17-year-old female bear named Berit.
The curious duo didn’t make it past that hallway, so no visitors, staff, or other animals were in danger.
But, as a precaution, all visitors were told to wait inside of the zoo.
The Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden live tweeted during the event to ensure the public was safe.
Animals seem to have a knack of exploring and going where they are not supposed to, be it a farm animal that got around its fence, a runaway dog, or a missing cat.
But what happens when the animals are more exotic and maybe a little more dangerous?
Here are three stories on animals that got loose and caused a commotion.
- Who here can recall that time in Arizona when two llamas left their home and decided to explore the city? Last year, a larger, yellow-white llama and his companion, a smaller dark-colored llama, were able to evade the police for a couple of hours. In that time, the Internet quickly fell in love with the animals. Twitter seemed to all but explode from the trending topic. You can check out some of the tweets here. They ran through traffic, golf courses and into American's hearts. The two were so beloved that a shirt was created a little later that depicted a black and white llama with the text "Llama Drama" written on it.
- Authorities began receiving phone calls Wednesday Oct. 9, 2011, about strange animals walking around freely. Terry Thompson of Zanesville was somewhat of a collector of exotic animals. His large collection included tigers, lions, bears, cougars, wolves, baboons, and macaques. He released 56 animals in total and, tragically, committed suicide shortly after. Because most of these animals were highly dangerous to people in surrounding areas, they had to be killed. Some were relocated to the local zoo and some were left to owner's widow.
- Also in 2011, a monkey got loose and ran freely in Fremont in northwest Ohio,. This 6-year-old grivet monkey was only missing for about 2 ½ hours before the owner was able to recapture it. Two little girls got scratched while this curious monkey made its way through the town. The owner was given a citation for the incident. The two little girls did not need any medical attention, according to cnsnews.com.
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