Zoos in Japan train their employees for the possibility that one of the animals might escape. They can't use real animals for these training sessions, so they improvise with employees in costume. We've previously shown you escape drills featuring a zebra, a gorilla, a rhinoceros, and a bear. Recently, the zookeepers at the Tobu Zoo practiced capturing an escaped white tiger. The scenario was that an earthquake had broken the glass of the enclosure, freeing the tiger. The drill was apparently successful, and the "tiger" was defeated by a tranquilizer gun. It's not clear whether the tranquilizer was real, but if so, the employee probably got the rest of the day off.
While it's always good to know the protocol in advance, an actual escape would confront zookeepers with an animal that is much stronger, faster, and more bitey than any human could hope to portray. The actual white tiger makes a cameo appearance in this video, from behind glass. -via Boing Boing