The National Zoo in Washington is adding fencing and security, not for the animals but for the human visitors.
The zoo has submitted a plan to add perimeter fencing around the popular public venue to close all the gaps and reduce pedestrian entrances from 13 to three.
Eventually, the institution would like to build security checkpoints at entrances.
Up to 25,000 visitors each day visit the zoo during its busiest times.
Smithsonian officials say the zoo is the only public venue of the institution that does not have security screening in place.
“What we are doing is catching up to what everybody else has been doing,” Pamela Baker-Masson, the zoo’s associate director of Communications, Exhibits and Planning, told WAMU, a public radio station in Washington. “Our whole institution realized we had to do a better job about visitor security,” she said.
