A quiet time inside for the lions and baboons

By MATHEW DEARNALEY

Auckland Zoo is taking precautions to ensure dangerous animals do not escape at the millennium changeover, and keepers of human prisoners will also be on guard.

The zoo will lock animals such as lions and baboons in internal enclosures after closing time tomorrow night, in case any power failure puts electric fences out of action.

The animals are usually kept outside, surrounded by moats and steep banks, which curator Stephen Stanley said yesterday should be more than enough to ensure security.

Electric fences were a third tier of precaution, unlikely ever to be needed, but the zoo wanted to "make super-sure" there were no Y2K-related escapes.

Keeping animals inside would also reduce the risk of any injuring themselves after being alarmed by celebratory fireworks.

Mr Stanley said he and a colleague would stay at the zoo overnight. Normally, one person is on overnight duty.

The Corrections Department says it expects "business as usual" at its prisons.

But it has contingency plans ready if electricity or water supplies fail.

It says its own computerised equipment had passed an audit and is Y2K-compliant, but it accepts that outside services could be interrupted. Senior officials will be at an operations centre in Wellington from 3 pm tomorrow until 9 am on Saturday to monitor the prisons network.

The public prisons national security manager, Ian Taylor, was reluctant to discuss contingency details, but said enough alternative electricity generators would be available if the mains electricity was lost.

Another department official said all prison cell doors could be opened and shut manually.

The Mason Clinic for forensic psychiatric patients in Auckland has electronically locking doors, but has its own generators in case of any Y2K electricity failures from outside - which Transpower says are unlikely.

The clinic's director, Dr David Chaplow, said its locks and air-conditioning systems could also run on battery power for up to about four hours if the standby generators failed.

He said any holiday period was stressful in psychiatric institutions, as patients were acutely aware that the rest of the world was celebrating.

But staff would do their best to allow some form of millennium observance.

Air New Zealand and Ansett are displaying prominent signs at airport check-in counters warning that it is illegal to carry fireworks and other explosive materials onto planes.

The signs are normally displayed before Guy Fawkes Night, but the airlines said the celebratory nature of the millennium changeover had prompted them to bring them out again.

The Fire Service hopes most revellers will rely on public fireworks displays rather than their own stockpiles, saying the dry summer calls for even greater care than on Guy Fawkes Night.