African painted dogs attacked boy who fell into pen at Pittsburgh zoo

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette quoted Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium president Barbara Baker as saying the child, aged about three years old, was with his mother and friends when he fell about 4.5 metres off a deck - and over railing and a mesh barrier - into an exhibit of African painted dogs.

When the boy fell, visitors told staff members, who responded along with Pittsburgh police.
Zookeepers called off the dogs, and seven of them went to a back building. Three more eventually were drawn away from the boy, but the last dog wouldn't come into the building and was shot by police.
"It's clear that the dogs did attack the child, but whether he died of the attack or the fall has yet to be determined," Baker said.
The dogs are about as big as medium-sized domestic dogs, 0.6 to 0.75 metres high and weighing between 7 to 36 kilograms, according to the zoo.

African wild dogs are also known as cape hunting dogs, spotted dogs, and painted wolves. They have large, rounded ears and dark brown circles around their eyes and are considered endangered.
Police and the Allegheny County medical examiner's office were investigating.
Baker said the zoo, which has never had a visitor death, plans an internal investigation, and no decision has been made yet on the future of the exhibit.
The dogs normally live in a 10.6ha exhibit called the Painted Dog Bush Camp - part of a larger open area called the African Savanna, where elephants, lions and other animals can be seen.
In May, some of the dogs crawled under a fence and escaped into a part of the exhibit usually closed. The zoo was on lockdown for about an hour as a precaution. Ten African painted dogs were born at the zoo in 2009, and their mother died of a ruptured uterus shortly after delivering the litter. Five of the pups survived. The mortality rate for painted pups is 50 per cent, even when born in the wild to a healthy mother.
It was only the second litter to be hand-raised in captivity, along with one in the United Kingdom, zoo officials said at the time.

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