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SAN FRANCISCO (CBS 5 / KCBS / AP / BCN) ― Less than three weeks after an escaped tiger killed a teenager at the San Francisco Zoo, officials acknowleged Friday that a nearly 100-pound snow leopard somehow managed to force an opening through steel mesh and got part of its head and paw out of its feeding cage before a zookeeper secured the space.

Thursday's leopard mishap, which some zookeepers termed a "near miss" in regard to their safety, is one of two new incidents that have surfaced -- calling into question the security and maintenance of zoo's animal exhibits.

A week earlier, zoo employees had to use darts to goad a cantankerous polar bear into its night enclosure, officials admitted. The next day the zoo said it was raising the height of the wall of the polar bear exhibit.

Zoo spokesman Sam Singer said the incidents never posed a safety threat to visitors. He called the leopard incident a "minor breach," and said "the polar bear did not try to escape."

Zoo officials have said the tiger that escaped from its pen Christmas Day and mauled three visitors likely climbed over a wall surrounding its enclosure that measured 12 1/2 feet - 4 feet lower than nationally recommended standards - after it was provoked.

Carlos Sousa Jr., 17, of San Jose, was killed in the attack and his two friends - brothers Amritpal and Kulbir Dhaliwal, 19 and 23 - were severely injured.

Zoo director Manuel Mollinedo said the leopard had been moved out of the feline conservation area so workers could do maintenance there. It was put in one cage that sat in a larger secured enclosure. The leopard was able to rip apart some of the wire mesh of the inner cage and squeeze its paw and a portion of its head out of a 4-inch hole, Mollinedo said.

A zookeeper ultimately used food to lure the male leopard, named Gurja, back into a secure cage and close the door. The incident occured about 3 p.m. Thursday, a time when the zoo was open to the public.

"At no point was there any danger to the public. This was a double containment area," Mollinedo stressed.

Singer said the female zookeeper could have been harmed if she had not secured the cage; the hole was patched up with plywood.

"She was able to deal with it and secure the safety of animal and herself," Singer said. "Even if (the leopard) had escaped, he would have been in another cage... so it had no opportunity of ever coming in contact with the public."

However, an unidentified source told KCBS Radio that the stainless steel mesh the animal broke through is also the same type of material used in the wall that separates visitors from the snow leopards.

The snow leopard is an endangered species native to the mountains of central and southern Asia. According to the Zoo's own website, snow leopards are superb jumpers and when stalking prey can easily leap up to 50 feet.

The leopards are dangerous animals, described in reference books as "opportunistic predators, eating whatever meat they can find, often killing animals three times their size."

Meantime, zoo officials contended that the polar bear mishap was never a danger to visitors either. 

Singer said that incident occured as employees tried to "cajole" the polar bear to move into its night enclosure so they could work on raising the wall around the exhibit. This happened on the evening of Jan. 3, the night before severe rainstorms hit the Bay Area.

When the polar bear wouldn't budge, employees pelted it with tranquilizer darts -- causing the bear to scurry up fake rocks at the back of the exhibit; zookeepers eventually had to use a fire hose to get it to move from the one enclosure to another. Both techniques have been used before when zookeepers need to move an animal.

Zoo officials added that the female bear never reached a height that would have allowed it to leave.

"She can be a little bit cantankerous," Zoo spokeswoman Lora LaMarca said of the 27-year-old animal that was born in the wild. "She has street smarts, as opposed to the other two (polar bears at the zoo,) who were hand-raised."

The day after the polar bear incident, the zoo announced it was raising the wall of the exhibit, saying that the renovations were prompted by a "thorough safety review of our animal exhibits."

The remedy, the zoo said in a statement at the time, consisted of a 3-foot tall chain link extension that will sit atop the existing moat wall, bringing the total height of the barrier to 16 feet. The statement on Jan. 4 said the fences were beginning to be installed that day.

Singer denied the wall was raised because of the Jan. 3 incident.

The Association of Zoos and Aquariums, which accredits zoos throughout the United States, will send a three-person inspection team to San Francisco later this month.

"They'll be looking at the specifics of recent incidents, as well as the big-cat program in particular," AZA spokesman Steve Feldman said.

Feldman also said zoo officials have informed the AZA of the recent polar bear and snow leopard events and "they've let us know that they are looking into the details of those incidents, they're still engaged in some fact-finding."

Mark Geragos, a lawyer for the two men wounded in the tiger attack, said his investigation into zoo missteps has revealed a number of incidents like the cases involving the leopard and the polar bear -- that occured prior to the tiger attack.

"I can't believe they even reopened the zoo (after the tiger escape)," Geragos said in an interview Friday.

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