Posted on 12/27/2007 10:18:04 AM PST by wardaddy
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - The big cat exhibit at the San Francisco Zoo was cordoned off as a crime scene Wednesday as investigators tried to determine whether a Siberian tiger that killed a visitor escaped from its high-walled pen on its own or got help from someone, inadvertent or otherwise.
Police shot the 300-pound animal to death after a Christmas Day rampage that began when the tiger escaped from an enclosure surrounded by what zoo officials said are an 18-foot wall and a 20-foot moat. Two brothers who also were visiting the zoo were severely mauled.
Police Chief Heather Fong said the department has opened a criminal investigation to "determine if there was human involvement in the tiger getting out or if the tiger was able to get out on its own."
Police said they have not ruled anything out, including whether the escape was the result of carelessness or a deliberate act.
(AP) Tatiana, a female Siberian tiger that killed one person and injured two others, is seen in the lion... Full Image
Fong said officers were gathering evidence from the tiger's enclosure as well as accounts from witnesses and others.
One zoo official insisted the tiger did not get out through an open door and must have climbed or leaped out. But Jack Hanna, former director of the Columbus Zoo and a frequent guest on TV, said such a leap would be an unbelievable feat, and "virtually impossible."
"There's something going on here. It just doesn't feel right to me," he said. "It just doesn't add up to me."
(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.myway.com ...
What?????
You think they were "taunting the tigers that Americans won't taunt?"
I had wondered if 350 pounds was not really a 'big' number at all for a tiger... I thought I remembered that they get into the several hundred pound range. Are they slow to mature? are females smaller? Or was this cat just not a very big one?
I’m beginning to ask if all this coverage is meant to exonerate the tiger somehow. As if the liberal media can’t accept that the tiger chose to attack the men so therefore they have to find some way to blame the victims.
As Rush says “A tiger is a tiger.”
Whether the men provoked the attack or even helped the tiger out, they were stupid for doing it and the tiger did what tigers do. Why this is still a news story on the third day mystifies me.
I think it's a very interesting news story and I hope it ~doesn't~ fade before we learn what really happened. People don't get attacked by tigers in American cities all that often.
..and the first woman fire chief
yeah I heard that theory too,in any case, I doubt to other two buddies will be chatty about what went down...since they may face charges
I was wondering that as well. Perhaps 350 is the optimum weight for a tiger to jump high...fully grown but not packing on the extra "zoo-pounds" that would keep her from being able to get the most out of a jump. We have 2 cats, brother and sister. The female is much smaller and can easily out-jump her portly brother.
OMG. they were illegals? I have to rethink this whole thing again.
I notice the word “human” showing up a lot in media these days, rather than “people”, “kids”, “zoo keepers”, “somebody”, etc. “Human involvement” is slightly-veiled, and slowing-encroaching animal-lover and guilt-ridden-human-speak for “bad, evil, homosapien activity”. It’s almost phyla and class species-speak meant to sound clinical and keep “humans” at no better than par with lions and tigers and bears, oh my.
I don't know.
They didn't release the names of the other 'victims'.
I'm wondering if they were dangling poor Carlos over the moat or was Carlos showing off. I also think that there were more than just three of them... they only caught three of them because they were too injured to get away.
Lots of suspicious looking stuff going on here:
“... and slowly-encroaching ...”
I agree that if we find out these kids definitely were involved in taunting the tiger, my sympathies for them and the tiger will be even more conflicted.
But just because a situation is emotionally complex doesn’t mean we have to try very hard to stay firmly rooted in reality. Cops don’t have as much time to react as you just had in reading this post.
They had to shoot it. It’s not the cops fault the tiger was loose, but that’s the situation they were called to solve.
Re: But anyone who puts a brute animal’s life above that of a fellow human being, no matter how wretched, has their priorities seriously screwed up.
So Jeffrey Dahmer’s life is more valuabe than that of a rare tiger???
One of the most ludicrous things I have ever heard.
Personally, I'm holding out to learn what the official word is on what happened, but if it turns out that the victim was acting out a certain type of cruelty by taunting and teasing a caged animal and then got killed by that same animal? The part of me that believes in karmic justice, loves animals and hates those who are cruel to animals will have a hard time finding sympathy. Boys will be boys, but tigers tend to be tigers.
I have a 15-20lb female “outside cat” that routinely leaps 5-8 feet onto tree branches. I think a tiger could do that.
I once made eye contact through a glass window with a tiger at the Animal Kingdom at Walt Disney World. It looked at me, narrowed it’s eyes then got up and trotted over and peed right in front of me. Lesson learned? Tigers are sensitive to challenges
NO...it just escaped it’s area (door was left open)....and it was wandering fields....the owner begged the FWC (Florida Wildlife Commission) to let him retrieve the tiger when they saw it (since he could walk up to it and put a leash on him and lead him home) and they promised they would. But, the kid killed it.
The two kids know what happened.
My bet is the lawyers are telling them not to talk,might hurt the lawsuit.
And to everyone else,this is an interesting story,the cops were right,no animal is worth a human life,if these kids were tauting a tiger they were stupid.
That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
P.S. I have a 20lb cat named Scratch,I gave him that name for a reason,when he could fit in the palm of my hand,I never make him mad;)
“I bet the policemen who shot the animal see tigers in their sleep, though.”
I’d like to be a fly on the wall the first time the cat jumps on the bed...
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