A 17-month-old boy suffered minor injuries after sticking his hand through a wolf enclosure fence at Hershey's ZooAmerica park in Pennsylvania. His parents face child endangerment charges for allegedly supervising him from their cellphones 30 feet away. Bystanders intervened to pull the child to safety.
Derry Township Police Department reported that the incident occurred at ZooAmerica in Hershey, where the toddler squeezed through a small opening in a wooden barrier and approached the metal fence surrounding the wolves. A wolf then took the boy's hand in its mouth in what authorities described as instinctive behavior. The child's parents, Stephen Wilson, 61, and Carrie Sortor, 43, were charged Saturday with misdemeanor counts of endangering the welfare of a child after leaving the boy unsupervised while seated 25 to 30 feet away, focused on their cellphones until hearing a commotion from bystanders who rescued the child. They had walked to a seating area, allowing the toddler to wander toward the exhibit unsupervised, police said. Police noted the parents only reacted after the disturbance drew attention. Hershey Entertainment and Resorts stated the boy never entered the enclosure, crediting multiple protective layers, signage, and barriers. A spokesperson told local outlets that the child crawled under an exterior perimeter fence, reached the primary metal enclosure, and put his hand through it, prompting the wolf's natural response without aggression. The injuries were described as minor, and court dates for Wilson and Sortor were not immediately available.