Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio, Hey Brainstuff Lauren Vobebam.
Speaker 1: Here Back in twenty twenty two, a fisherman off the
Speaker 1: coast of Texas spied a puff of light pink feathers
Speaker 1: perched on one leg. It was a flamingo. Flamingos are
Speaker 1: not native to Texas and Nora's Texas anywhere on a
Speaker 1: flamingo's normal migratory path. After tweeting a video of the bird,
Speaker 1: Texas Parks and Wildlife confirmed that the birding question was
Speaker 1: one Pink Floyd, a flamingo that escaped Kansas Zoo in
Speaker 1: two thousand and five. For seventeen years, Pink Floyd had
Speaker 1: traveled through Texas, Arkansas, Wisconsin, and Louisiana as well a
Speaker 1: free bird. There are no updates on it as of
Speaker 1: this recording, but that Pink Floyd is not to be
Speaker 1: confused with another flamingo on the run from an aviary,
Speaker 1: the Pink Floyd of Utah's Salt Lake. Both of these
Speaker 1: birds were able to assescape because their keepers hadn't kept
Speaker 1: their wing feathers clipped, and they simply flew away. Today,
Speaker 1: let's talk about some daring animal escapes. I will say
Speaker 1: most of these stories have happy endings, but we do
Speaker 1: discuss one injury and a few later deaths. Just want
Speaker 1: to give you a heads up in case you frequently
Speaker 1: visit does thedogdie dot com up or if like me,
Speaker 1: you're a little bit on edge right now? Okay, okay,
Speaker 1: first step, let's talk about the Saint Louis six. In
Speaker 1: twenty seventeen, six steers and Saint Louis were sent to
Speaker 1: a slaughterhouse, but they were not about to go quietly.
Speaker 1: Led by a huge steer named Chico, six of them
Speaker 1: broke out, as supposedly agitated by the rumblings of an
Speaker 1: approaching thunderstorm. Likely scared by their freedom and the ruckus
Speaker 1: had caused, they ran through the streets of Saint Louis
Speaker 1: for hours. They evaded everybody while capturing the attention of
Speaker 1: the media, animal lovers, and the local community. Authorities eventually
Speaker 1: rounded the crew up, but by then the public had
Speaker 1: also begun a campaign for their freedom. A non profit
Speaker 1: animal sanctuary called the Gentle Barn stepped in to negotiate
Speaker 1: with the slaughterhouse, which gave them twenty four hours to
Speaker 1: find the Steers a new home, and that they did.
Speaker 1: The six were sent to a rescue until enough funds
Speaker 1: could be raised to build a new facility in Missouri
Speaker 1: especially for them. Although one bull, a named Spirit, had
Speaker 1: to be euthanized due to injuries sustained during his adventures,
Speaker 1: and another Eddy has since died, the other four, named Houdini,
Speaker 1: Johnny cash Rue, and their fearless leader Chico, now live
Speaker 1: happily as therapy cows at the Gentle Barn location in Tennessee.
Speaker 1: Next up the Dania Beach monkeys of Broward County, Florida.
Speaker 1: In nineteen forty eight, fifty green monkeys escaped from the
Speaker 1: Anthropoid Ape Research Foundation or ARFF. Green monkeys are a
Speaker 1: species with fur in shades of gray, gold and a
Speaker 1: little bit of green that weigh only a couple of
Speaker 1: pounds or about a kilo. The ARFF was opened in
Speaker 1: the early nineteen forties in South Florida as a zoo
Speaker 1: and provide primates from Africa for the research for the
Speaker 1: polio vaccine. After the monkeys escape, some were captured, but
Speaker 1: the others started lives in the Florida wild. Now, more
Speaker 1: than seventy years later, scientists from Florida Atlantic University have
Speaker 1: been able to trace a colony of thirty six monkeys
Speaker 1: thriving in the thick mangrove forest near the Fort Lauderdale
Speaker 1: Airport to those remaining escapees. How partially because of that
Speaker 1: green coloration, the researchers photographed every monkey at Dania Beach
Speaker 1: and recorded various traits to help identify their species. They
Speaker 1: also tested genetic markers and confirmed that the Dania Beach
Speaker 1: monkeys are in fact descendants of those from West Africa. Today,
Speaker 1: there's nonprofit the Vervet Project, whose goal is to build
Speaker 1: a sanctuary for the monkeys to keep them safe from
Speaker 1: human interactions. Of course, these monkeys aren't the only primates
Speaker 1: to have broken free. The San Diego Zoo had an
Speaker 1: orangutan known for pulling escape backs by the name of
Speaker 1: Ken Allen. He first got out in nineteen eighty five,
Speaker 1: scaling a wall and then strolling down the zoo's pedestrian
Speaker 1: pathway and taking in the sites before being walked back
Speaker 1: to his enclosure, which wasn't very enclosed. Zoo staff increased
Speaker 1: the height of the wall by four feet that's a
Speaker 1: little over a meter, but that didn't stop can Allen,
Speaker 1: or the great Ape and even some of his ape
Speaker 1: friends escaped an additional nine times. He was even known
Speaker 1: to use tools to do it. When he was young,
Speaker 1: he had unscrew the bolts of his nursery at night
Speaker 1: and then put the pen back together before his caretakers
Speaker 1: arrived the following morning. One time, he and his roommate Vicki,
Speaker 1: used a discarded crowbar that he found in his pen
Speaker 1: to open a window. After several escapes, the zoo tried
Speaker 1: electric wire and even distracted him by att two female
Speaker 1: rang attends to his enclosure. Nothing worked. Eventually, his female
Speaker 1: counterparts A Jane and Kumeng picked up the behavior and
Speaker 1: made their getaway using a window squeegee. A Ken Allen
Speaker 1: died from cancer in the year two thousand, at twenty
Speaker 1: nine years old. His status as a local hero long confirmed.
Speaker 1: The Los Angeles Zoo has also had its fair share
Speaker 1: of animal escapes. Of Virginia, a wolf escaped numerous times
Speaker 1: during the seventies and eighties by climbing trees and fences,
Speaker 1: and Evelyn, a Western Lowland gorilla, escaped her living arrangements
Speaker 1: at least five times. Evelyn was creative with her getaways,
Speaker 1: as she successfully jumped off the back of another gorilla
Speaker 1: to go over a wall and used overgrown vines to
Speaker 1: pull herself up and over the wall or to swing
Speaker 1: over the twelve foot mote. That time, she didn't even
Speaker 1: leave the zoo perimeter. She just roamed around for a
Speaker 1: little over an hour and was, according to the Los
Speaker 1: Angeles Times, behaving like a huge child. Evelyn was born
Speaker 1: in the Los Angeles Zoo in nineteen seventy six, and
Speaker 1: she lived to the truly impressive age of forty six years,
Speaker 1: perhaps partially due to her irrepressible personality. Today's episode is
Speaker 1: based on the article Great Escapes five wild Animals who
Speaker 1: busted out and went on the run on how Stuffworks
Speaker 1: dot Com, written by Alison Trautner. Brainstuff is production of
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio in partnership with how Stuffworks dot Com and is
Speaker 1: produced by Tyler Klang. Four more podcasts my heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the Airheartradio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
Speaker 1: to your favorite shows.