Search Exotic Incidents Database

Several witnesses reported a man employed by Great American Circus beating a baby elephant with a shovel after he pulled his truck into a restaurant parking lot. The elephant’s shrieking was so loud it could be heard by the patrons inside the restaurant. The man left when he noticed several people watching.

A man was bitten on the finger after he reportedly climbed over a plastic barricade and put his hand into the cage of a 350-lb lion owned by Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey. According to the man’s friend, the victim had been drinking.

A lion with Kessler Bros. Circus put the head of the animal trainer in her mouth, suffocating him before she was shot and killed.

A leopard with the Great American Circus jumped out of the ring and bit a 3-year-old girl on the neck.

A keeper at San Diego Zoo’s Wild Animal Park was kicked in the head and killed while attempting to break up a fight between two elephants.

An elephant at the Oakland Zoo kicked to death the handler cleaning his pen.

A chimpanzee escaped from a local amusement park, snarling traffic and injuring 2 people before being subdued with tranquilizer darts.

A father and his son fell from an elephant they rode at the Indianapolis Zoo. The man suffered a dislocated hip and severe groin injury, later sued for lost wages and trauma from the incident.

A 15-foot-long Burmese python escaped for the third time in a year. It was loose for four days before being found in a nearby work shed. The sheriff’s office wanted to file a civil claim to recover the expense of the search and deter future escapes.

Zoo visitor Rick Swope jumped into the moat of an exhibit to save a drowning chimpanzee. Both he and the chimpanzee survived.