Trail of blood apparently led escaped tiger to victims

San Francisco Chronicle ^ | Dec 27, 2007 | Kevin Fagen, Jaxon Van Derbeken, Steve Rubenstein, Cecila Vega

[BibChr]

Why do you want to kill something that actually lives it’s [sic] life the way God intended?

Because that's sometimes the way God intended me to live my life. Like when a mosquito is sucking my blood, or ants or cockroaches are eating my family's food, or if a dog were to attack one of my kids....

[bboop]

Unfortunately for ‘blaming the zoo’ — there were footprints found INSIDE the tiger compound and the Darwinians had been taunting the tiger. As it is currently forbidden to have Little Black Sambo on library shelves, children today obviously do not know that tigers can eat you up.

[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.

[SALChamps03]

Yes. They are silly.

[7thson]

Which is why in the wild, when a wild animal attacks and/or kills a human, the animal is put down.

[SALChamps03]

F%&k the tiger. A person died.

[LIConFem]

But only because there's no other way to deal with such an animal in the wild (i.e. no other way to control it and/or prevent future attacks). That's not (necessarily) the case in a zoo.

In any event, I don't know why such attacks, as horrific as they are, come as such a shock. These cats are gonna do what comes natural.

[numberonepal]

It's just a shame it ended this way for a very beautiful and magnificent tiger.

In almost any situation if the animal gets a taste of human blood, it has to be put down.

[Cvengr]

I guess this means they failed the lab portion of Seigfried and Roy’s online training seminar?

[muawiyah]

You are missing the point that cats ~ ALL CATS ~ are highly complex animals with first class brain power.

They even sense the death of companion animals.

Obviously cats do not use language, and certainly don't read or write. At the same time they have to strategize about how to get through the herd of big bulls to attack the weak or the young so they can eat.

It's up to human beings to keep our true nature (as food animals for tigers) secret from them. Once they know it's all over and we must destroy them.

[Bon mots]

These two brothers refused to give police their names at the scene... there were probably more of them - just these two got bit and scratched by the tiger and so couldn’t make a clean getaway.

Sounds like a gang had a zoo visit day.

The only question is if they intentionally fed Carlos to the tiger, or did Carlos’ initiation go wrong.

[muawiyah]

It was a year overdue to put down this particular animal. Last thing a human being wants to do is teach a tiger that he, the human, is as weak, fragile and edible as a fawn.

Once you let out the secret you must dispose of the tiger.

They don't forget!

[mewzilla]

The dead young man’s parents have been on a couple of networks this a.m. That didn’t take long.

[driftdiver]

“The main question to ask is why this tiger was not put down a year ago when it nearly tore the arm off a zoo keeper?”

Because its a wild animal doing what wild animals do.

[muawiyah]

You cannot afford to give the big cats even one small bite. If you do, you must destroy the cat.

Everybody knows that.

[HairOfTheDog]

That’s just the stupid knee jerk reaction.

It can still be a shame the tiger was put down, a victim of her circumstance just as much, or more, than the people were.

[muawiyah]

The PC crowd thought the story was all about the black kid when it was really about the tiger.

Well, so much for PC.

[redstateconfidential]

Well put,regards.

[HairOfTheDog]

Once you let out the secret you must dispose of the tiger. They don't forget!

People should have been able to completely control her circumstance and protect her from attacking again. We took on that responsibility when we held her captive. She wasn't a housepet gone bad, she had no bargain with us that she breached.

[driftdiver]

“You cannot afford to give the big cats even one small bite. If you do, you must destroy the cat.

Everybody knows that.”

Evidently not everyone as this cat wasn’t ‘destroyed’.

To destroy a valuable and rare animal for doing what it does naturally is a knee jerk reaction. This cat should have never had access to a person due to its controlled environment. In the wild it would be different. In the wild it would be a threat.