The zoo’s safety gap

A report shows safety committee’s ineffectiveness

A safety committee at the Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium had discussed concerns about the structure of the wild dog exhibit where 2-yearold Maddox Derkosh was killed six years ago — but those concerns weren’t sufficiently disseminated among zoo staff or acted upon.

Those details are from a federal report obtained by the Post-Gazette under a Freedom of Information Act request. They’re a reminder that safety at a place like the zoo is everybody’s responsibility. While officials there noted that the exhibit met professional and government safety standards and had passed nearly three dozen federal inspections since its 2006 opening, people on the ground saw a problem, and the zoo should have had a mechanism for spring boarding their concerns into action.

When it debuted the Saturn in 1990, General Motors gave all workers at the Tennessee plant the authority to stop the assembly line if they observed a quality-control issue. A similar stop-everything-untilthis-is-sorted-outmindset is essential at public venues today to prevent everyday accidents or something darker, like a mass shooting.

On Nov. 4, 2012, Maddox lurched out of his mother’s grasp, bounced off a safety net and fell into the exhibit, where he was fatally mauled. The federal investigation found that concerns about guests dangling children over the exhibit were raised during at least three zoo safety committee meetings in 2006 and 2007. In all, according to a story Thursday by the Post-Gazette’s Anya Sostek, staff and volunteers raised concerns about the exhibit on at least six occasions.

The zoo seemed to lack a protocol for addressing the safety committee’s concerns. One member said she didn’t know what happened to information shared at the meetings. A keeper said he didn’t read the minutes of committee meetings, which were posted for staff members to review. The person who was curator of mammals at the time told authorities that he’d never seen minutes alluding to concerns about the wild dog exhibit and could not recall hearing about any exhibit-related safety concerns.

A person who chaired the safety committee said she planned to talk to someone about the concerns but couldn’t recall what, if anything, she did after one of the zoo’s insurance representatives told him that wasn’t his bailiwick. Barbara Baker, the zoo president and CEO, said she didn’t usually see the minutes of committee meetings.

In a statement, the zoo stressed that safety is a top priority and that safety and security policies are “constantly” evaluated and communicated. But there clearly was a gap needing to be filled at the time of Maddox’s death. The impotence of the very committee tasked with zoo safety is inexplicable.

Safety is an evolving concept, not a static one. People who work at public venues must be empowered to identify safety lapses and bring them to the attention of superiors — to the leadership of the organization if necessary. In some cases, that might mean shutting down all or part of an attraction until a problem is fixed. There’s nothing wrong with hitting the pause button if it means getting something right.