Posted on 12/27/2007 10:05:26 AM PST by knuthom
In the wake of reports that police are investigating whether a tiger at the San Francisco Zoo was taunted before attacking a trio of young men, the father of the teen who was killed doesn't think his son would "do such a foolish thing."
"I don't see the proof or the evidence yet," Carlos Sousa Sr. said in a phone interview this morning following a national appearance on "Good Morning America." "But kids are kids and you can't be watching them all the time."
Still, Sousa Sr. said he wanted to find out more information later today about what happened to his 17-year-old son, Carlos Jr., when he is scheduled to meet with a San Francisco police investigator "and get some more facts."
He added: "It could have been one of the other kids. And my kid could have just gotten it the worst."
Sousa Sr. has not yet visited the two other young men - San Jose brothers - in the hospital, and has not heard their account of what happened.
"Right now, I'm in shock," he said. "It's difficult going through this. I don't really feel like doing hospital visits. It's my only son."
Police are reportedly investigating whether one or more of the young men mauled by the tiger may have taunted the animal before its deadly rampage, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. Police found a shoe and blood in an area between the gate and the edge of the animal's 25- to 30-foot-wide moat, prompting the possibility that one of the victims dangled a leg or other body part over the edge of the moat, according to the Chronicle. Carlos Jr. had spent Monday with his father and had been expected to be at his mother's for dinner. His parents are divorced. Marilza Sousa had a dinner of black beans and rice waiting for her son.
His parents figured their son - who didn't have a cell phone - was with friends. But they began calling his friends at 10 p.m. Christmas night, but none of them seemed to know where he was.
Carlos Sr. said he didn't know the full names of the other two men injured in the tiger attack that ended when San Francisco police shot and killed Tatiana, a 350-pound Siberian tiger.
Police Chief Heather Fong said Wednesday the department opened a criminal investigation "to see if the tiger was able to get out on its own or whether there was human involvement."
There is no security camera in the area that might have captured what transpired, she said. Officers are interviewing everyone who was at the zoo Christmas night.
"We are not exactly clear on what transpired," said the zoo's director Manuel Mollinedo.
Sometime shortly after 5 p.m., the tiger escaped from her fortified grotto, which is surrounded by a 20-foot-wide concrete moat and a 18-foot-high Mollinedo said he had never seen the tiger "down in the lower moat area," which is not filled with water. . Once free, Tatiana immediately attacked Carlos, who died at the scene.
Calls started flooding 911 at around 5:07 p.m.
Police arriving at the scene found Tatiana attacking another man near the zoo's Terrace Cafe, about 300 yards from the large-cat grotto. They hollered for it to stop and then shot it dead when the tiger began to move toward them, Fong said.
Fong said she did not know how many shots were fired.
Police and hospital officers have not released the names of the two men who were injured in the attack, but KTVU is reporting that all three men are from San Jose.
The two survivors under went hours of surgery to clean their wounds, San Francisco General Hospital's Rochelle Dicker said. Hospital officials said they are most worried about the possibility of infection and have put the young men, reportedly brothers ages 19 and 23, on antibiotics.
But, both men are doing "quite well," she said, crediting the quickness of their arrival to the hospital and their youth with their speedy recovery. Neither should suffer lasting physical effects of the attack, she said.
The zoo was closed Wednesday after the attack, almost exactly a year after Tatiana attacked her keeper during a feeding.
Officials made the decision to close the zoo "out of respect for the victims." It remains closed today.
Investigation into the incident continues. It is the first time that an escaped animal killed a visitor at a zoo accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, officials with the non-profit association said. Mollinedo said he has invited staff members from other zoo accredited by the association to help him review the cat enclosures, which will remain closed until public and animal safety can be insured. He said the rest of the zoo may reopen Thursday.
A statement on the AZA Web site says under the mandatory accreditation standards, the San Francisco Zoo must provide a thorough report of the incident to its independent Accreditation Commission, "which will review it and determine any actions that need to be taken. We will not speculate on what action might be taken until the facts are fully reviewed."
"AZA-accredited zoos are safe. Until this incident, there had not been a visitor fatality resulting from an animal escape at an AZA-accredited zoo. AZA mandatory accreditation standards require safety and emergency protocols that go beyond federal, state or local requirements. Regular safety training and annual emergency drills are required by these mandatory accreditation standards."
But People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals today called on the zoo to close its tiger exhibit.
"There are some species - including tigers - that simply do not belong in captivity because of their extraordinarily complicated physical and psychological needs," PETA captive exotic animal specialist Lisa Wathne said in a letter to Mollinedo. "Scientists at Oxford University have concluded that big cats and other wide-roaming predators become neurotic when they are confined. No 'educational' program is worth sacrificing animals' well-being."
According to the zoo's Web site, the zoo's two Siberian tigers, Tony and Tatiana, lived in an outdoor enclosure near the Lion House. The zoo also has three Sumatran tigers at the west end of the Lion House. Both types of tigers are classified as endangered species.
Tatiana's enclosure was reinforced after the cat's first attack two days before Christmas last year.
In the attack last year, Tatiana seriously injured keeper Lori Komejan's arm during a regular afternoon feeding at the Lion House.
The California Division of Occupational Safety and Health later ruled the zoo was responsible for that incident, blaming poor training and the way the tiger enclosures were designed.
Zoo officials closed the Lion House for renovations and did not open it until September. Tatiana's enclosure, which she shared with Tony, was fortified after the 2006 attack, Jenkins said.
Safety measures can only help so much when dealing with predators such as tigers, said Chris Austria, an animal trainer who has worked with tigers at Marine World in Vallejo and with bears at the San Francisco Zoo. The attacks likely had little to do with hunger, he said.
"San Francisco Zoo has always been very safety-conscious and well-trained," he said. "But when they're working with wild animals, they're very hard to control. When they escape their habitats, they can be very aggressive."
The association's accreditation standards also will require that the San Francisco Zoo provide a thorough report to its independent Accreditation Commission, which will review it and determine any actions that need to be taken. The association sends a team of investigators to inspect accredited facilities once every five years.
The U.S. Department of Agricultural, which regulates some facilities that work with live animals, will also investigate to attack, spokesman Jim Rogers said. The regulations that the department works with aren't specific, saying that outdoor fences less than 8 feet high enclosing dangerous animal like tigers must be approved by an administrator.
I wonder how many times keepers watched him try and go for it...and ignored it.
No kidding. She’s also a keen observer of behavior, whether human or animal, and good observations are valuable whether or not they come with credentials.
Re: Cut the guy some slack.
Do you feel the same way about drug dealers who are killed?
I have no idea what you mean. I am talking about the kids father.
The maddest I ever got was when a mother lowered her baby into a primate area so the ape could kiss her darling. I don't generally cuss, but I increased that woman's vocabulary considerably.
That mother sounds like one of the people who learned everything they know about animals from Walt Disney.
From my exerience as a zoologist and a zookeeper, I would say it is plausible a tiger would remember someone who was cruel to it. Many zoo animals remember who is mean and who is respectful of them.
I treated the big cats with respect, and once found myself in a very dangerous situation, trapped between a mother lion and her cubs. She crouched and watched me carefully, but allowed me to walk away. She left me alone until I could get freed from the enclosure.
That job really opened my eyes. I had assumed everybody had some familiarity with animals and with animal behavior. I found out a lot of people are clueless what animals are. Their reactions to seeing live animals were shocking. Many people react with something akin to hatred immediately. Others thought they were like kittens or teddy bears.
I remember one woman was offended the lions were engaging in behavior she deemed unacceptable in polite society. She insisted we stop them. One of my buddies handed her the keys to the lion enclosure and told her that SHE should go in there and stop them. I don't know if the male lion would have attacked right away or saved her for a snack for after his activity. (She probably would have thought it great if she saw the cubs when they were born.)
I had grown up around horses and adopting any critter that crawled, flew or slithered up to me. I assumed everybody lived that way.
Especially, since we now know, this cat had attacked others in the past and was in a non-authorized pen where escape was an option.
I said it was plausible, not that was what happened. Who did this tiger attack in the past? I haven’t heard that.
Get a mouse or rabbit to run in front of a cat and see what that cat does.
What a fool Tredwell was.
One of it’s handlers, a lady who was placing food in it’s area. Obviously got too close and had her arm mauled.
I had a friend who got a broken neck from a tiger. One swat on the back and he was down. Luckily, he survived, but he treated the tigers with more caution.
Wild animals are just that, they are not the same as "domesticated" ones and need to be treated like a bomb - handled with the utmost care only by those who have expertise in such matters and even then knowing that at any moment your death may result!
Absolutely. Even though we had good working relations with our animals, we never gave the more dangerous species the opportunity to do us harm. At the same time, I think if you have been mistreating an animal, you are more likely to be killed if you find yourself face to face with the critter.
Your experience shows you that tigers (heck, most zoo animals) are intelligent creatures. Many here believe they possess no cognitive abilities whatsoever.
I am definitely not one of them.
I once had a female chimpanzee watch me pull my keys out. She stuck her hand out begging for the keys. I gave her a key I happened to have that didn't fit anything anymore. She immediately ran over to the cage door and tried to put the key in the lock.
Smarter than many people I know.
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