A puma was shot dead after escaping its zoo cage in Daejeon, South Korea. Citizens are signing petitions to shut down zoos across the country.

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On September 18 at around 5:10 PM, an eight-year-old female puma escaped its cage at Daejeon O’World Zoo after a zookeeper failed to lock the cage after cleaning.

The puma, which was found 200 meters away from the cage, was initially shot with a tranquilizer gun. However, when it wandered the zoo over two hours without tranquilized, police used live ammunition to kill it.

“It was not easy to capture the puma alive as it moves so fast and runs right away when people approached,” explained the authorities. “We couldn’t help but shoot her for citizen’s safety.”

As the news spread, people raised concern about animal rights. Over 50 petitions were posted on the government’s petition board. One of the petitions even requested punishment against the zookeeper who failed to manage the cage properly. More than 19 thousand signed the petition asking to shut down all the zoo in the country.

“Please don’t blame animals for human’s mistakes,” said the petitioner. “It was her instinct (to wander the zoo). Keeping wild animals in a zoo is not a protection, but a torture.”

 

Original article
Translated and edited by Heewon Kim