Posted on 12/27/2007 2:35:00 PM PST by Shermy
The wall of a moat that surrounds the enclosure from which a 350-pound tiger escaped on Christmas Day was actually far shorter than San Francisco Zoo officials thought and what national standards recommend, authorities said today.
Zoo officials have gone back and forth on the grotto's measurements since Tuesday's attack, which killed 17-year-old Carlos Sousa Jr. and seriously injured his friends. Relatives and public records identify the friends as brothers Paul Dhaliwal, 19, and Kulbir Dhaliwal, 23.
Earlier this week, zoo officials said the moat's wall was at least 20 feet tall. Today they said it was little over 12 feet. Officials have given at least five different measurements for the enclosure, which is surrounded by a moat, two walls on either side of the moat, a small patch of grass and then another waist-high fence. Experts say that the depth of the moat and height of the walls could have a large impact on the animal's ability to escape the enclosure...
..Zoo officials and police authorities today are backing off earlier statements to The Chronicle that the victims may have dangled a limb over the animal's enclosure, helping the 350-pound cat escape. But they would not rule it out.
At a news conference this morning at the zoo, officials said there was no shoe found in the enclosure. On Wednesday, unnamed sources had said that authorities found a shoe and blood on the grass inside the enclosure; today, Police Chief Heather Fong said there was no shoe found in the grotto. A shoe was discovered near where the third victim was attacked, she said; and a shoeprint was also found on the railing of the waist-high fence surrounding the grotto.
...An examination of the tiger's body also revealed a significant amount of concrete in its back paws..
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
They are relatively easy to measure but almost impossible to build. Ask The Department of Homeland Security!
“The minimum standard for a tiger enclosure is 16’-4”.
SF zoo officials in huge trouble.
Deservedly so.”
Perhaps. I’ve spent a lot of time at the SF Zoo, in the Cat House more specifically, and I’ve spent a large amount of time at the tiger enclosures drawing them and photographing them. I never saw a tiger go near the moat, and it’s a lot deeper and wider than the photos show. The tigers spend their time in the shade near the top - tigers by nature are lazy and only pursue prey when they want to eat, or provoked.
My gut feeling is the kids provoked the tiger. I witnessed that kind of thing constantly at the zoo - I watched people throw things at the animals, shine those laserpointers into the apes eyes, throw batteries, yell at them, taunt them, go out of their way to provoke a response from the animals.
I also have a strong, strong hunch it was a video-taped event, for showing on YouTube or one of the other video sharing sites, and I have a strong hunch pictures or video was found on their cell phones, but that evidence will never see the light of day.
I have no trouble imagining that the cat used a dangled limb as a ladder, and the cat got more purchase with it’s back paws while grabbing the limb with it’s front paws.
I *never* saw a tiger act in a threatening manner in it’s grotto, in the multitudes of times I was there. I saw them avoid things being thrown at them...I saw them stop and sniff the air when the breeze shifted and it could smell the zebra close by...I saw them “rawr” out of boredom, but never run around the moat, or try to jump the wall. Those tigers have been there years, with no problems with the public - even with the public TRYING to provoke them.
IF this was a freak occurance, then sympathy for the dead and hurt. If not, then I have as much sympathy for them as anyone else on the Darwin Award’s website - it’s absolute common sense you don’t mess around with a tiger, period. Ever. Even if it’s “tame”, like the ones in Vegas. We all saw what happened there. A tiger, once removed from the cage, sees us as food, and a pissed tiger? Forget it. The thing they say about tigers is, kill it fast, because if you don’t, it’s going to stalk you until it gets you. That’s why I think it was provoked - and provoked enough that when it got out, it did’nt seek food, or freedom, it sought out TARGETS.
As much as I hate it with a passion, I think the SF Zoo should shut down, to the public, anyway. I stopped going because it was being overrun with immigrants who saw it as a cheap place to babysit their kids while they sat around the cafes gossiping, or getting drunk and/or high on the grass, while their kids ran wild. The issue isn’t wild animals, it’s a moronic, stupid public who have to be coddled and protected from themselves - they clearly cannot understand “climbing into tiger pit = bad”, and will now sue because they raised a stupid child with no common sense.
The SF Zoo is probably doomed now. The rewards from the multiple lawsuits will cripple their already faltering funds, and the city has probably been waiting for this opportunity to tear down the zoo to make way for some prime real estate (and new property taxes). Like I said, maybe it’s better.
Close the zoos, and take the breeding facilities private, so stupid people can’t throw themselves into them. End of problem.
You mess with the bull and you get the horns..
assuming a 7” riser on the steps, it would seem that the “stalagmite” at 2:00 is only 8’ - 9’ tall - with another half leap to the top - a total of 12’
Then it seems it could have ran across the top to the left and onto the pedestrian area.
It would be, if the animal were not a strong swimmer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvgsrT8Z924
thanks for that pic
Tiger, tiger burning bright
You jump higher than a kite
Landing clean outside the wall
Bite ‘em hard and kill ‘em all
~Kipling
This doesn’t explain why a tiger didn’t escape sooner.
details are changing
That's the kind of depth perception you get when, all your sexually active lives, you've been told that "this much" (holds fingers three inches apart) is nine inches.
12 feet from bottom of dry moat to edge of viewing? Good grief, a housecat can jump 4-6 feet straight up when motivated. Surely they don’t mean the wall separating the moat from the public. They must mean the wall that has the electrical barbed wire (at least I hope it’s electrified.)
Sooner or later the complete truth will out as concerns this story.
for now, we must speculate.
First, the deafening silence of those two brothers is very telling. Those guys did something at that tiger grotto. I suspect they somehow got inside of the thing, judging by such as footprints on the wall.
I understand the footprints were found on the smaller wall but this makes me think one, two or all three of them were INSIDE of that grotto area, at the very least they were on the grassy area outside of the bigger wall. Late in the day like that? They probably figured it would be cool to climb the wall and have fun with the tiger.
The tiger attacked first one brother, than the guy it ended up killing, then it followed the guys who were then running away toward the cafe. It seems to me that those three were attacked by the tiger and were desperately trying to get away. It’s not like they were walking by all innocent like is what I’m saying here. Somehow, some way, those three guys got in some bad mischief around that tiger grotto.
Now as to the height of that wall....well this is confusing. at first the zoo says the wall, and I speak of the larger wall that enclosed the grotto around the moat, was 20 feet high. Now they say...no wait, it’s only 12 feet high! Well which is it for God’s sake? Eight feet is a mighty big difference.
For now I kind of think those guys were inside of that grassy area by climbing the smaller fence. They might have been throwing stuff at the tiger, whatever. The tiger got angry and an angry tiger could climb a 12 foot wall evidently. although there’s the mystery of the moat. surely they could ascertain if the tiger swam the moat by virtue that its dead body would be wet, right?
This is a very intriguing case.
The important thing to remember is the tiger is disposed of and will never harm again.
Damn...of course!
In my speculation I forgot that it most certainly could be Bush’s fault. That’s a scenario applicable to anything that happens on the planet.
“How hard is it to go in and measure a fence? It’s not exactly rocket science.”
Note to self... make measurements, THEN put tigers in.
Note to all... Alcohol, testosterone, and tigers don’t mix.
Uh, Kipling lampooning Blake?
Not the two white guys.
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