DALLAS - Police confirm that a gorilla has wandered away from her compound at the Dallas Zoo.
Officials say the gorilla, named Tufari, is in an enclosed space and has no access to the public.
She has been tranquilized; officials are waiting for the sedatives to take effect.
A SWAT team is standing by as a precaution. No one has been hurt.
Tufari weighs 200lbs and is 20 years old. She arrived at the zoo in 2008.
She escaped from a gorilla dayroom which is inside a larger private building next to the exhibit.
She climbed on top of the cage but never left the actual building.
The zoo was closed to the public because of the snow.
Back in 2004, SWAT team officers felled a rampaging 300-pound gorilla at the Dallas Zoo. It collapsed on the abandoned sandals of fleeing children.
Jabari, the 13-year-old western lowland gorilla, escaped from his 2-acre enclosure at the zoo, and attacked several people before charging at police officers, who fired three shots.
The gorilla bit a 26-year-old mother and her 3-year-old son several times and threw them against a wall. Zoo officials said Jabari had scaled a 16-foot concave wall.
A 25-year-old zookeeper was mauled by a gorilla at the Dallas Zoo in November 1998 after the door to the animal's cage was left open.
Hercules, a 340-pound male silverback gorilla, was tranquilized with a dart gun after the woman escaped. The attack lasted more than a half-hour, leaving her with more than 30 puncture wounds. In that attack, zoo guests were not in jeopardy.
Dallas Morning News contributed to this report.
