• In 1973, a panther in transit at the zoo escaped by squeezing through the bars of its cage. It was spotted 13 months later in a drain at the Singapore Turf Club and killed.
• In 1974, a hippopotamus escaped by knocking down a wooden stockade and disappeared into the Seletar Reservoir. It was recaptured 52 days later.
• In 1974, an eland (of the antelope family) escaped into the catchment area. It returned to the enclosure on its own two weeks later.
• In 1982, Ah Meng the orang-utan climbed a tree at MacRitchie Reservoir and stayed up there for three days. Then she fell from the tree and broke her arm. She had been taken there for a film shoot. The director wanted her halfway up a tree. She had other ideas.

This article was first published in The Straits Times on Sep 5, 1996.