Gate to Pen Left Unlocked in Error : 47 Flamingos Victims of Wild Coyotes at Zoo

A pack of wild coyotes killed 47 flamingos at the Los Angeles Zoo early Wednesday after a new keeper failed to lock the long-legged birds in their night quarters, zoo officials said.

“This is a real tragedy for the zoo,” said Michael Wallace, curator of birds. “Occasionally we lose an animal to disease or to incompatibility,” he said. “But generally, we don’t lose an animal like this.”

The last fatal attack on zoo animals was in 1985, when six penguins were killed by coyotes sneaking in to the zoo’s 113 acres from other parts of Griffith Park.

Wednesday’s attack is believed to have begun at about 5 a.m., when at least three coyotes got into an unlocked pen holding a collection of 86 American and Chilean flamingos, Wallace said.

The coyotes flushed the birds out of the pen and began taking them, quickly moving from one to another.

“The fluttering feathers creates an instinctive response,” said Wallace of the coyotes’ vicious attack.

“They’ll just keep going from one moving animal to another” until they are all dead, Wallace said. “The coyotes were in heaven.”

The flamingos, with their clipped wings, were no match for the coyotes’ speed, the curator said.

A zoo gardener, who happened upon the carnage, had to drive the coyotes off, according to Wallace. “They were very relaxed and tame enough” that they did not immediately run off when confronted by the human.

The coyotes did eat some of the birds they killed, Wallace said. Besides the 47 dead birds, five are still missing and one was injured and not expected to survive. An additional 33 flamingos in the exhibit survived.

Wallace said the coyotes apparently got into the holding pen because its gate was not locked by a new zoo employee, whom he declined to identify. Normal procedure at the end of the day calls for an employee to walk the flamingos from their open grassy exhibit area, to a holding pen that can be locked.

“Apparently,” Wallace said, “they (the flamingos) walked over into the pen by themselves. They are accustomed to it since it’s part of their daily routine.”

And, the curator said, the new keeper assumed that another zoo employee had herded them in and locked the gate. It was a “communications error,” Wallace said.

It will cost about $47,000 to replace the dead birds. The 33 white Chilean flamingos cost about $750 each and the 15 pink American flamingos cost about $1,500 each.