- A case study of how amateurs’ good intentions can make the professionals’ job harder.
The state of Washington is home to many majestic animals. Roaming its forests are black bears, moose, deer, beavers, and more.
We can now add another animal to the list — a zebra.
Yes, one zebra. The African equine was one of four that recently managed to escape from their transportation trailer.
The other three were quickly corralled up, but the cunning fourth animal eluded all potential captors. She has been running amok since, enjoying her newfound freedom.
That’s not for a lack of capture attempts, though. Yet, this sneaky striped beast has managed to break free of everything animal control officials have thrown at it.
Naturally, an animal as rare as a zebra wandering around has piqued the locals’ interest and many have started looking for it, either to try and help in its capture or just to gawk at the exotic creature. Now, however, authorities are pleading for people to stay away, because they’re making all capture efforts even more difficult.
Meanwhile, the zebra keeps having a whale of a time.
Issues on the Interstate
The strange story of the zebras began on Sunday, April 28. The owner of the exotic animals was transporting them in a trailer from Winlock, Washington, to a petting zoo in Anaconda in western Montana.
At some point, he stopped to better secure the trailer. Something, however, had the exact opposite effect and all four zebras escaped their confinement.
That led to the animals wandering dangerously close to the nearly I-90 interstate, with high-speed vehicles traveling by. Fortunately, the zebras seemed content to graze on the side of the off-ramp, which allowed helpful passersby to form a barricade with their vehicles that stopped the zebras from getting onto the interstate.
“The cars on the offramp kind of pulled over by the guardrail and kind of lined up really close to kind of make a makeshift fence to keep them from coming up onto the offramp area,” local resident Dan Barnett told King 5.
That said, the zebras then headed in the opposite direction of the interstate — and straight into the neighborhoods of North Bend. While they did disrupt the locals’ quiet life, their flabbergasted phone calls to the authorities made it easy to track the animals.
As a result, they were captured within a couple of hours — all except one.
Z the Escapee
While the slower trio of the zebras was busy getting corralled in, one of them broke containment and took off. That was Z the Zebra.
Hey, a name is a name, even if it’s not very imaginative.
Despite original reports that the escapee zebra was a stallion, she is indeed a mare — and a slipper one at that. At the time of writing this story, Z is still on the loose and evading capture.
That’s despite the authorities’ best efforts to catch her. Part of the problem is that Z looks deceptively calm.
“He’s not scared. He’s just kind of looking and wondering where his friends are at this point,” Dallas Clark of King County Animal Control told King 5 at a time when they still thought Z was male.
Yet, as soon as she spots the approaching animal control volunteers, she will take off. Z is an agile creature and fences don’t hold her, as she demonstrated on April 28 when she originally took off by leaping a fence.
Just Back Off, Please
While the zebra search is being mostly conducted by animal control volunteers, others have decided to pitch in as well. Namely, the locals have tried approaching Z.
Some have simply wanted to see the famous zebra just to say they did. Some, on the other hand, are trying to help with the search — using some questionable methods.
There have been reports of vigilante zebra searchers going onto people’s private property and causing disturbances. In a more serious incident, people let dogs loose to try and track the zebra.
You can probably see how that could’ve ended with injuries on both sides.
“I understand wanting to help. A big part of that, though, is also by not going out and finding him,” said Clarke.
Now, the authorities have issued a message urging people to please stop trying to help.
“Please join us in partnership as we work to rescue our sweet zebra by giving our rescuers all the space they need to rescue her,” King County councilmember Sarah Perry wrote on her Facebook page.
“She is in an area where there are feeding zones to coax her out for a rescue, but every time a well-intended walker, bicycle or unleashed ‘search dog’ comes near her it makes rescuing her so much more difficult.”
Sometimes, the best thing you can do is to do nothing.