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Feb 8, 2008 8:38 pm US/Pacific
New Group Of Safety Experts To Convene At SF Zoo
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) ―
A team of experts assembled by city officials will convene Saturday at the San Francisco Zoo to start preparing recommendations for improving visitor safety and animal care at the site of a fatal Christmas Day tiger attack.
A group from the agency that accredits zoos in the United States visited the zoo a few weeks ago. But a city spokeswoman says local officials want suggestions from their own review team. The city owns the zoo and the animals in it, but the facility is run by the nonprofit San Francisco Zoological Society.
The seven-person team includes the director of the Houston zoo, the general curator of the Bronx Zoo, representatives from two Bay area humane societies and an architect who specializes in zoo enclosures, among others.
A 17-year-old boy was killed and his two friends injured when a 250-pound tiger escaped from her zoo enclosure, which turned out to be four feet shorter than the height recommended by the accrediting agency.
The spokeswoman says that while the public is not invited to watch the reviewing team, the group will issue a report that will be made public in a month or two.
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