ROYAL, Neb., Sept. 12 (UPI) -- Three chimpanzees were shot and killed by the director of Zoo Nebraska after they escaped from their cage.
Zoo Director Ken Schlueter Jr. said one of the padlocks was apparently not clicked shut by a worker who had cleaned the cage that housed the zoo's four male chimps, the Lincoln (Neb.) Journal Star reported.
Visitors and employees saw the chimps lift the padlock and break out.
One of the chimps left the zoo and walked about a block and a half into the small town of Royal, where he opened the door of a convenience store. A sheriff's deputy at the scene quickly shut the door and the chimp returned to the zoo "almost immediately," Schlueter said.
While one of the chimpanzees went back into his cage, zoo workers and law enforcement officials couldn't get the other three chimps to join him.
Attempts to pacify the chimps with a tranquilizer gun were unsuccessful, Schlueter said. He shot the three loose chimps with a deputy's service revolver after the animals tried to get into a building where visitors were barricaded.
"When it became apparent there'd be danger here, they had to be destroyed," Schlueter said.
