Regrettable incident

For every child — even the very old ones — a visit to the zoo is something to be cherished. Be it Dublin Zoo or Fota Wildlife Park in Cork, the sound of a growling lion or the sight of a restlessly prowling cheetah is a never-to-be-forgotten experience.

Normally in the news when a baby is being named, perhaps from an endangered species, Dublin Zoo is now under the spotlight because of an attack on a 2-year-old girl and her mother by a tapir during a supervised close-up visit to see the normally docile animal from the jungles of Brazil which recently had a calf.

While the zoo has launched an investigation and ceased all supervised visits to animal enclosures, it would be a tragedy if attendance at this great national institution were to suffer because of the regrettable incident.