However, when the flood occurred the water rose so quickly that apparently not all the animals could be rescued from their cages in time, and were shot to prevent them from drowning. Prior to this flood, Tors was planning to open the compound to the public for tours and had sought a zoning variance to do so. The second flood occurred in January 1969 and seems to have been much worse. Several other animals were also mentioned as missing but perhaps not drowned as the news articles mention that the chewed carcass of a cow was found, giving the impression that one of the big cats had eaten it. 1965 and is the one that caused Bruno the bear (later the main actor in “Gentle Ben”) to be swept away. The first one, which is the one discussed in the Cleveland Amory TV Guide article, happened in Dec. It seems like there were indeed two major floods. I found a little more information about the floods at Africa USA in doing my research for “Gentle Ben”, based on California newspapers from the 1960s I accessed through. My thanks to “squeapler” for this wonderful information! I decided to create a blog post to highlight these comments as they give a full story as to what happened. and its proprietors, animal trainer Ralph Helfer and Daktari producer Ivan Tors) regarding the floods which destroyed the compound. Recently a reader known as “ squeapler” left a series of lengthy comments on the post about Africa U.S.A.
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