And female forest rangers use tranquilizer guns to take down Grizzly Bears for health checks and fitting radio collars, imagine that? As for taking down a tiger with a pistol I know a lot of hunters who would take a pass on that as too dangerous. I'll make the same point as you do regarding the tranquilizer guns, unless you are very lucky the animal is going to live for a time and make your life very interesting. By lucky I mean a heart, brain, or spinal cord shot. I seen white tail deer shot through the "boiler room" with a 30-06 run for a couple of miles. I seen others drop where they stood. That's not a chance you want to take by being under gunned.
Regards,
GtG
At close range?
Never mind all the silly arguments about what was more dangerous that what. The fact is the cops have to deal with whatever they're called in to deal with and they did. Listening to you, it's unlikely the cat is even dead. Well, it is dead, and they shot it. What are we debating?