Saint Louis Zoo Faces Bear Breakout and Lockdown

And it's not the first time the clever bear has made a break for it.

Some zoo visitors got a bit more than they bargained for Feb. 23, when an animal on the loose interrupted their day.

The Saint Louis Zoo went into a brief lockdown on Thursday following an animal escaping from its enclosure, leading patrons to shelter in place in certain other exhibits or their cars, as reported by WGN9.

The escapee was an Andean bear named Ben, and this wasn't his first rodeo. Ben escaped earlier this month, too, before the zoo had opened to the public. He was discovered missing around 8 a.m. and was safely corralled and tranquilized less than two hours later.

That breakout was found to be the result of a "Goldilocks-esque" maneuver on Ben's part, in which he messed with the fencing around his outdoor enclosure in just the right way to cause a cable to collapse and permit him to escape, per Fox2.

This time, Ben got out around 1 p.m., according to the zoo's social media, and was found close to his habitat by zoo personnel and secured in under an hour.

They haven't confirmed exactly how he made the break again, but shared that after the first time, his habitat was secured with stainless steel cargo clips, rated at 450 pounds tensile strength, which clearly "wasn’t enough for Ben."

The young bear is four years old. According to WGN9, he was born at the Queens Zoo, later transferred to Saint Louis in July 2021 as part of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums’ Andean Bear Species Survival Plan (SSP). The zoo has assured the public that their teams will work with the Association of Zoos & Aquariums (AZA) Bear Taxon Advisory Group (TAG) to find the best way to secure Ben within his habitat.

Despite his Houdini tricks, Ben is not the first animal to vanish this year. In January, a leopard escaped from the Dallas Zoo, but hey—at least neither of them came across any cocaine in their adventures.