A clouded leopard briefly climbed a tree near the perimeter fence at the Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium on Friday, prompting temporary pathway closures as staff activated safety protocols.<\/p>\n
According to a post on the zoo\u2019s Facebook page, the incident happened during the 11:30 a.m. Wild Wonders Outdoor Theater show when Orchid, an 11-year-old clouded leopard, \u201cdid not return directly to her behind-the-scenes habitat and instead climbed a tree in an area behind the theater near the zoo\u2019s perimeter fence.\u201d<\/p>\n
The zoo said it closed pathways in front of the theater and the Rocky Shores area \u201cout of an abundance of caution\u201d while animal care staff responded. \u201cSafety protocols were immediately activated,\u201d the zoo said, adding, \u201cThere is no danger to guests or staff at this time.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a 2:23 p.m. update, the zoo said Orchid \u201chas been safely returned to her habitat, behind the scenes,\u201d and that \u201cthe pathways are now open.\u201d The zoo said no animals, guests, or staff were harmed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A clouded leopard briefly climbed a tree near the perimeter fence at the Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":659824,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[79,201],"class_list":["post-659823","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659823","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=659823"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659823\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/659824"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=659823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=659823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=659823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}