GORILLA IN OUR MIDST: APE SLIPS ZOO PEN.

Byline: Donna Huffaker Staff Writer

GRIFFITH PARK - A 270-pound gorilla named Evelyn aped King Kong on Wednesday when she escaped from her habitat at the Los Angeles Zoo and roamed about the exhibits for more than an hour before she was safely tranquilized.

Officials evacuated all the zoo visitors while keepers attempted to lure Evelyn back to her home with bananas and M&Ms as a flotilla of helicopters overhead televised the live drama. Not since King Kong scaled a Manhattan skyscraper has a gorilla captured so much attention.

``It turned out to be a little bit more exciting than we thought a visit to the zoo might be,'' said David Brins, a Scottish tourist who snapped a photo of the runaway ape before zoo officials escorted him, his wife and their two children away. ``It was quite exciting to see a gorilla with nothing between you and it.''

A veterinarian used an air gun to shoot Evelyn with a tranquilizer outside a men's bathroom around 4 p.m., about an hour after she escaped, said Michael Dee, general curator for the zoo. Evelyn walked inside and collapsed about three minutes later.

Dee said the zoo keepers decided to subdue the ape for her safety.

``The helicopters scared her. She was frightened,'' he said. ``She wanted to get back to her familiar environment. Being outside, among the masses, is not familiar environment.''

The gorilla was recovering from the anesthesia and suffered no negative effects, zoo officials said. Evelyn, a 24-year-old lowland gorilla, had apparently hoisted her hulking frame out of her enclosure by grabbing a tiny branch, Dee said.

It has since been cut.

It wasn't Evelyn's first time on the lam, Dee said. When she was 6, Evelyn climbed on the back of another gorilla and leaped to freedom before quickly returning to her habitat.

Although gorillas are generally gentle animals, Dee said, Evelyn - who required six zoo keepers to pick her up - was scared, so she grabbed a keeper's shirt, ripping it, and slapped another keeper, he said.

Six months ago a kangaroo escaped its pen and walked among the public. And in August, a gorilla named Jim jumped from the middle enclosure to his neighbor's enclosure, in the waterfall area, Dee said.

``This is not a gorilla problem, really. It's more gorilla curiosity,'' he said of Jim's escape.

As Evelyn ambled away from her enclosure Wednesday afternoon, zoo officials immediately began herding visitors to the zoo's exit as quickly as possible, Dee said.

Oregon resident Jim Sechrist was walking near the gorilla exhibit when the keepers started yelling, ``Stay to the right, move as fast as you can and keep moving,'' he said.

Sechrist traveled to Los Angeles to visit his father-in-law and planned to spend Wednesday at the zoo. Two hours after walking through the gates, he and his family were shuffled back out.

``I guess it's just one of those things,'' Sechrist said, adding that he hopes he gets a refund because he saw only a quarter of the exhibits.

Evelyn, one of eight gorillas at the L.A. Zoo, is used for breeding and her offspring have been relocated to other zoos.

The zoo is in the process of designing a new gorilla enclosure. Officials recently refurbished chimpanzee and orangutan habitats, complete with more grass.

The Los Angeles Zoo has been on track to become one of the country's leading zoos - a seemingly unattainable goal just five years ago when the American Zoo and Aquarium Association nearly yanked the facility's accreditation for poor management, internal power struggles, health and safety violations and obsolete, vermin-infested animal exhibits.

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Evelyn, a 270-pound gorilla, was on the loose for about an hour Wednesday at the Los Angeles Zoo after using a branch to hoist herself to freedom. Zoo keepers tranquilized her after attempts to lure her back to her pen with bananas and M&Ms failed.

Photo courtesy of Los Angeles Zoo