Posted on 05/12/2007 8:29:57 PM PDT by Omega Man II
Sun 13 May 2007
'Pet' tiger mauls woman to death
PAT WILDE
A 32-YEAR-OLD woman was mauled to death by a tiger at an exotic animal farm in British Columbia, Canada, while children looked on in horror.
Tanya Dumstrey-Soos spoke with her fiancé Kim Carlton, who owns the farm, by mobile phone as she lay dying.
"Before she passed away Kim did say that he did have a chance to talk to Tanya," said Scott Nelson, who employed Dumstrey-Soos as a receptionist and saleswoman at the Advisor newspaper in the town of 100 Mile House, British Columbia.
"He said the two were able to say they loved each other and he was obviously horrified."
Nelson, the mayor of Williams Lake, British Columbia, said that Dumstrey-Soos and Carlton had recently become engaged to be married.
The woman was found outside the tiger's cage when emergency services arrived at the farm on Thursday evening, said Royal Canadian Mounted Police corporal Scott Ksionzyk in 100 Mile House.
'Before Tanya passed away Kim had a chance to talk to her. They said they loved each other'
"There is no indication that the tiger was outside of the cage; nor is there any indication that the victim entered the cage," Ksionzyk said.
Nelson said Carlton described a bizarre, freak accident involving a tiger named Gangus.
Carlton "didn't think the tiger had bitten her," Nelson said. "She had a dress on and she was standing there and he was playing with the dress and grabbed her legs. She was standing outside the cage and talking to Gangus, who swatted her legs."
He said Gangus was the only one of the three tigers on the farm not to have been declawed.
A number of youngsters, including one of Dumstrey-Soos' children, witnessed the attack, said Constable Annie Linteau of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. It is believed Carlton's children, Dakota, 12, and Kodiak, 15, also saw her being mauled.
"We were obviously horrified, more horrified that the young kids saw it, that they were there and obviously our hearts are with them," Nelson said.
Regional coroner Bruce Chamberlayne said Dumstrey-Soos was taken to a hospital in 100 Mile House after the attack but could not be revived.
The farm, at Bridge Lake in the interior of British Columbia, is called Siberian Magic. Carlton stages exotic and magic shows and also sells services such as photographs with the big cats.
The RCMP said all the animals - including the three tigers, a lion and a lemur - remained secured on the premises, 25 miles east of 100 Mile House.
After the incident, British Columbia Agricultural Minister Barry Penner said authorities would determine whether there was a need to change regulations that allowed private citizens to keep exotic animals. The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals has called for legislation to ban the practice.
Siberian Magic's website invites people to visit the Bridge Lake facility to experience "the wonderful worlds of magic and exotic animals." The farm is about 250 miles north east of Vancouver.
"Visit our animals up close and personal," invites the website. "Capture the memories and have your photo taken with our amazing Siberian tiger, Kisa, or our African lion, Sarmoti, as well as many other wonderful animals."
The site claims the company educates people about exotic animals in a "safe, enjoyable way."
Marcie Moriarty, who is the general manager of cruelty investigations for the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, described the facility which houses the wild animals as a "public safety catastrophe".
"The tigers are being kept in 12-foot square (3.6 metres square) chain-link enclosures with a mere padlock on the enclosure. The animals' owner had admitted to walking the tigers, his kids feed them," she said.
Carlton had been under investigation by the SPCA since November 2005 when he moved his tigers to the 100 Mile House area, Moriarty confirmed.
After notifying regional authorities about their concerns, the SPCA tried for months to seize the animals but there was not any room at any facility, including the Calgary Zoo, to take them.
"The use of exotic animals in entertainment is simply playing with fire," Moriarty said.
Erin Kincaid, event manager for the Bearfoot Bistro in the ski resort of Whistler, had considered having one of the tigers at an annual masquerade event in November 2005.
But criticism from locals and animal rights campaigners persuaded her that she should drop the idea.
"We were just unfamiliar with the fact that so many people felt so strongly against it," Kincaid was last night reported as saying.
Commenting on the death, she added: "More than anything my heart goes out to the tiger. I really hope it doesn't end up having to pay for this because this is not the tiger's fault at all. I truly believe that it's how they keep them."
To put it succinctly: don't @#$% with a tiger!
"Tyger, tyger burning bright,
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye,
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
He would have ripped her heart out and ate it if he had been able to.
Please send me a FReepmail to get on or off this Canada ping list.
William Blake
Actually, all ownership including zoos, etc ought to be banned for any animals which are not currently domesticated. I can’t even go to zoo anymore, the animals are all miserable even in the best of conditions.
Medical research? Well, we have plenty of murderers in jail who owe society something. Let ‘em volunteer, if there aren’t enough voluinteers, volunteer ‘em.
As for the assclowns who put those kids within striking distance of those tigers, death by boola-boola.
“The tiger must have slashed a femoral artery or something?”
Well, an answer to that question would be INFORMATION, some thing this article lacks. Good to know the poor woman got to chat with her fiance and that several of their children were present.
Absolutely one of the worst pieces of news writing I can remember reading.
May the poor deceased rest in peace.
Seriously, selective breeding has caused domesticated dogs and cats to stay at a "puppy" or "kitten" stage indefinitely. Grown dog behavior is much like that of wolf cubs in the wild. Cats are less problematic because they're smaller, but they still have arrested development compared to the big cats.
That's also why tiger and wolf cubs are "cute" and tractable until they mature sexually, then become dangerous.
Liberal Utopian dreams that the Lion shall lay down with the Lamb.
Predator animals occupy a world so alien to Liberal human beings that they would likely die from shock if they got just a momentary true glimpse of it.
Ask Canadian Freeper Kanawa, who had to kill a full sized Black Bear that was stalking him, with his hunting knife last summer, to defend his own life and that of his dog.
This woman died needlessly and stupidly. A Waste. Darwin award. The children present there will never have such delusions.Too bad they had to see it, and were not suitably educated about predatory animals. Perhaps one could have prevented this tragedy.
In the modern zoos many of the animals seem to be doing well by any objective standard -- good health, glossy coats, bright eyes, active and curious. I'm not certain that wild animals recollect or long for the "great outdoors" - where of course many would die an early, prolonged, and miserable death due to disease or poaching. Particularly in third world countries where agriculture and development bring them into direct conflict with humans.
In fact, zoos (and the better circuses) have played an important role in preserving the gene pool for endangered wild animals.
If you were a hunter perhaps you would understand the true cruelty of zoos.
One visit to a long term prison for violent offenders, and you would be shivering in your boots just after walking through such a place. Its much worse for predatory animals than for predatory humans.
The world is just like that. Animals eat other animals, with a delight which most humans see as abject cruelty.
Put yourself in that world with a liberal vacant smile and your feather duster. If you are not just about the fastest 100 meter sprinter in the world, you would simply be dead meat.
A predators burp would be the only footnote to your life , in the natural order of things.
Such is the world of fang and claw, and as humans, we deserve no part in it without understanding that.
Zoos preserve nothing. They are black holes of suffering imposed on animals and the natural order. Show me one where there has not been tragedy and death. You can't.
Look at the people who refuse to believe that certain breeds of dogs can't be trusted and snap and that they are NOT family dogs....
Sorry about the woman but Darwin frowned upon her and that was that.
Darwin's frown kills at 3000 meters.
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