Posted on 06/26/2008 7:53:55 PM PDT by Mr. Brightside
Records: SF Tiger 'Frantic For Food' Before Attack
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS 5 / KCBS) ― The tiger that attacked and killed a teenager on Christmas day had lost 50 pounds since arriving at the San Francisco Zoo as a young and healthy animal two years earlier, raising concerns about whether she was getting enough to eat.
A KCBS Radio investigation of zoo records shows Tatiana arrived in San Francisco in December 2005 weighing 292 pounds. She was entering the prime of her life at two and a half years old. When she was shot and killed by police in December 2007, she weighed just 242 pounds.
Before she arrived in San Francisco, it appeared Tatiana was reaching her physical maturity. In the six months before she left Denver after steady growth as a cub, zoo records show her weight fluctuated only slightly, between 292 and 299 pounds, in the middle weight range for Siberian females.
But in San Francisco, her weight declined steadily, dropping into the 270s in her first year at the zoo in 2006, into the 260s the first half of last year, then into the 250s last fall. In her last live weighing last December, two weeks before the fatal attack, Tatiana weighed just 244.
In Denver, she was being fed 42 pounds of meat a week: six pounds a day, seven days a week. The Denver Zoo says she was in good shape, and that there was no indication she was over-weight when she was sent to her new home.
But upon her arrival in San Francisco, zoo records show she was fed less, 36 pounds a week: six pounds six days a week, with the seventh day a "fast day" that is not uncommon in big cat zoo diets. Her weight records show Tatiana lost 20 pounds in her first month in San Francisco.
In December 2006, one year after her arrival, Tatiana attacked zookeeper Lori Komejan during a public feeding. The tiger somehow grabbed Komejan's arm through the cage bars and clawed and chewed the arm until Komejan was rescued and rushed to the hospital with severe injuries. Komejan didn't return to work, and is suing the zoo for negligence.
Six weeks later, in Tatiana's first weighing after the attack, she weighed 260 pounds, her lowest since her arrival. A zoo diet change request form shows that on the next day, February 11, 2007, her diet was increased to 38-42 pounds a week. Zoo officials declined to comment on the reason for the increase.
But five weeks later, on March 22, Tatiana's food was cut back to the previous amount, 32-36 pounds a week.
From the zookeeper's log of April 21, 2007: Tatiana "frantic for food." From the log of June 1: Tatiana "frantic for food." From the log of June 3: Tatiana "very hungry." From a November 11 zookeeper report, noting Tatiana's theft of part of a male tiger's meal: "Animal got double her ration today. She acted like she wanted more."
By November 20 last year, two months after the lion house re-opening, Tatiana's weight had dropped to 255, then to 244 on December 17, with no adjustments made to her diet.
Eight days later, Tatiana leaped out of her enclosure as the zoo was closing Christmas Day. She attacked and killed 17 year old Carlos Souza Jr. and mauled his friends before she was shot dead by police. Zoo officials suggested the young men had been taunting Tatiana, but police did not charge them.
The day after the fatal attack, former zoo director Manuel Mollinedo, who resigned June 6, said Tatiana had been "at the top of her game."
I'd proposed she was simply on a prowl she'd been on before heading over to the dumpster at one of the little restaurant areas on the zoo grounds.
Kid got in her way.
End of story.
Now we have a motive for such behavior.
We sure do.
The zoo administrators were trying to save money on food.
I think I am ready for all zoos to close down and let the animals in captivity be taken to where they can roam in their own environment. We were at a zoo in Dec and the poor tiger did nothing but walk up a hill and back down. I stood there looking at him and thinking to myself what a beautiful creature of God ... meant to roam the countryside where he is from but instead...he is pacing, pacing, pacing because he is caged. I just don’t think it is right somehow.
I think with TV, Animal shows, computers and movies/DVD’s etc...we can learn about all the animals without putting them behind bars.
Crazy Californicans probably attempted to augment the tigresse’s diet to tofu and water chestnuts instead of the amount of meat it needed.
Crazy Californicans probably attempted to augment the tigresse’s diet to tofu and water chestnuts instead of the amount of meat it needed.
Maybe those SF twits had Tatiana on a vegan diet?
agreed. Send them back to their lands. Keep the ones that can be expected to thrive in a captive environemnt and repatriate the rest.
Yeah, only seems right huh? Not to mention humane.
You could not have been at the San Diego Zoo.
Awesome spot, wonderful people, useful information for all.
It always bothered me to watch the polar bears at the St. Paul, Minnesota zoo. They would swim around in their small pool doing the same pattern over and over. Dive on one end, push off with one foot on the other, etc.
I don’t know if this is a normal thing for them. It just seemed so obsessive compulsive.
This is not going to help the city in the lawsuit.
Zookeeper malpractice? Are they licensed? Are there certifications or professional categories? Are zoos accredited? Sounds like a failure of the system within the zoo community.
Just how much does it cost to feed a tiger?? A billion dollars a year? And what does the tax base bring in every year in SF? A trillion? All those “happy” folks in GayTown are so greedy that they would not give a crap, let alone an adequate diet for a tiger in their own zoo? It’s a freakin’ ZOO forcryinoutloud. God help us. I’m surprised. I’m shocked. I’m stunned. I’m being sarcastic.
My future mother in law put it best: We were talking about the carnival and elephants in particular and I might have said something about how I like to see elephants at carnivals, and she said “not me. This is not their natural environment, how could you like to see them dressed up, in a foreign and often hostile environment, performing for thier livelihood?” It really made me think about the whole situation and how sad it is to see them like that, like clowns, instead of majestically waltzing across the Savannah...
....I think zoos are a throwback to the time before TV....how bad do we need them now considering how much they cost...I can see exotic animals in HD on television....local animals like deer,fox,turkey,coyote ect are running around my land every day anyway...
Disney’s Animal Kingdom in Orlando does a very good job of providing large spaces for their animals to roam. Otherwise, I really dislike zoos and circuses for the very reasons you mention.
I bet the elephants are very happy to get fed everyday without having to worry about it.
yeah, like prisoners in our prisons, right?
Every zoo i have been 2 is rife with p.c. about endangered habitats, environmentalism, and globull warming. A haven for public funds to be used for b.s. eco Nazi indoctrination of our kids. I say pull all public funding and see if the basturds can survive on user revenue or voluntary private contribution.
You have to be careful when you are a tiger in San Fran. You pick the wrong prey and it may taste a bit queer.
Reminds me of that scene in Crocodile Dundee where Paul Hogan says he understood why the croc wanted to eat Linda Kozlowski...
Poor kitty. None of this was her fault. She was just being what she was — a predator — or in this case, a really hungry predator. I hope she haunts whoever made the decision to reduce her rations.
So elephants are just like humans, eh?
Maybe you should hang around some PETA blogs. LOL!
Whoever made the decision to reduce her food intake should be fed to a tiger. Stupidity of this sort can only be eradicated through naked, in your face example. Other idiots who do this won’t learn until they see their colleague eaten alive.
They dig through a lot of snow too.
I've always felt zoos with their bare rocks, concrete balustrade, wires, screens and plants made for a much more interesting environment than the Arctic for polar bears.
Such is the quality of life on the savannah these days. And who is to say an elephant doesn't actually enjoy a good carnival. They are, after all, social animals.
Siberian tigers are all but extinct in their natural environment. That they are in no danger of extinction is entirely due to captive breeding by zoos and hobbyists.
Well, maybe there should be a few exceptions when appropriate.
What happened to our propagandists for the zoo anyway? They just disappear or what?
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