The Columbus Zoo has made improvements to doors in its lion enclosure after one failed this spring – apparently leading to two lions fighting and one being euthanized.
The zoo reported the April 17 incident to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service during a routine inspection that took place between June 9 and June 11.
The USDA’s report says staff knew the zoo’s male lion, Roary, and one of the lionesses, Asali, did not get along. The two were kept separately overnight, each with another lioness.
A door between their overnight housing enclosures failed, and the zoo's Heart of Africa care team found all four lions together in the morning. They believed an "altercation" had taken place, leaving Asali with a fatal bite wound and Roary with minor wounds.
Roary recovered, but Asali had be euthanized.
The Columbus Zoo and Aquarium said in a statement that an internal review was immediately conducted and that the lion doors were constructed with a thick HDPE material that is typically used to separate animals.
The zoo said the doors included a window that could be opened, "a tool commonly used in doors across accredited zoological organizations to safely facilitate animal introductions." Zoo staff believed the window caused a structural weak point. Staff quickly inspected all similar doors used in large carnivore and primate enclosures.
The zoo said it shared details of the door failure with other accredited zoos in the hopes of preventing a similar incident.
"The safety and wellbeing of our animals is—and always will be—our top priority. We continue to grieve the loss of Asali and are committed to doing everything in our power to prevent an incident like this from ever happening again," a statement from the zoo reads.
USDA marked the zoo as "noncompliant" for the incident and gave them until June 20 to fix the problem, though the report notes the zoo had already made improvements before that time.
