Rhinos made a bid for freedom from safari park after security guard fell asleep

A young female rhinoceros named Rihanna led two pals on an escape bid from a safari park last Thursday after spotting a security guard had fallen asleep. The rhinos escaped from the front entrance of the Ramat Gan Safari Park in the city of Ramat Gan in the Tel Aviv district of western Israel after the security guard nodded off and failed to notice until too late what was happening.

Although another employee of the park gave chase, it was too late to stop the white rhinos from hitting the road. An inquiry is now ongoing to find out why the gate to their enclosure and the gate to the facility itself had been left open. Police who got a call to say that three rhinos were on the loose said that they initially doubted it, but when they realized it was true they had stopped the animals' further escape with a roadblock.
They then worked with zoo staff to stop the rhinos traveling too far, and too drive them back to the safari park. A police spokesman said: "We located the rhinos in the car park not far from the safari park itself." All three white rhinos including Rihanna as well as the other two females named Keren Peles and Karnivala were returned to the park after their brief adventure without further incident.

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Zoo spokeswoman Sagit Horowitz said: "Overall, the rhinos were outside about 10 minutes, in which they were in the parking lot adjacent to the entrance and did not enter the national park." The security guard that was supposed to stop the rhinos has reportedly been relieved of his duties.