[Caramelgal]

Could this have been a gang initiation?

Possibly, but probably not. Gang member initiations do not typically target zoo animals. Those “animals” typically go after human prey.

It probably had more to do with some young and very stupid guys trying to prove to one another how cool they were to one another.

”Hold ma beer and lookie here what I can do”

”Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life, son.”

If one of these teenagers (drunk or not) thought it was cool and funny to try to enter the tiger’s compound then, while very sad and tragic that at least one of them paid for one brief moment of stupidity with their life and the other two were severely mauled, it was their own fault. They should have known better.

The tiger however was just doing what a tiger does. If they were entering her pen, they were evading her turf and she acted appropriately. Too bad the tiger is also now dead.

Just because a wild and predatory animal is kept in a zoo, it doesn’t mean the animal stops being wild and predatory.

[IMissPresidentReagan]

“The tiger however was just doing what a tiger does.”

To quote Chris Rock re: Siegfried and Roy - “That tiger didn’t go crazy, that tiger went TIGER.”

It’s tragic that someone died what was I’m sure a horrible death. Hopefully no one else will think it’s a good idea to throw sticks at and then climb into a tiger’s pen.