The Escapes, at the Size the Record Gives Them

19 October 2004; 10 July 2026

2004: Five months after Coolah's death, the zoo made national news of a different kind. On 19 October 2004, five wildebeests broke through a gate and jumped a fence and roamed the streets of a north-central Fort Wayne neighborhood for hours. Fort Wayne police and Animal Care and Control officers cornered and tranquilized the animals and returned them to the zoo — but two of the five had suffered broken legs in the escape and were euthanized. The zoo was fined $825 for the incident, a figure the wire reports carried as faithfully as the escape itself. The episode's telling in the city's folklore register — and what it taught — stands in the Weird Facts section of this record; here it is printed at the documented size: five animals out, all recovered, two lost, a fine paid.

2026: On 10 July 2026 the zoo evacuated its African Savanna exhibit after a male white-bearded wildebeest — an animal that had arrived only three days earlier, on 7 July — moved from its habitat into an adjacent one through a shared pond. The animal was returned to its own ground, no one was hurt, and the episode closed the same day. Between the two dates sits the whole modern history of zoo-keeping in one pair of entries: the same species, the same zoo, and twenty-two years of learning what a gate is for.

Sources:

1. United Press International, "Zoo fined for wildebeest escapes," 17 February 2005, and USA Today (Associated Press), "Five wildebeests escape from Fort Wayne zoo," 19 October 2004 (the escape, the captures, the two euthanized animals, the $825 fine).
2. WBCL, "Wildebeest Escapes Enclosure at Fort Wayne Zoo," 13 July 2026, and WANE 15 reporting of 10–11 July 2026 (the 2026 habitat slip, the evacuation, the animal's return), as carried in the Weird Facts section of this record.