You know, your theory makes perfect sense to me. I never thought of one going in and others trying to distract the tiger. Or some kind of initiation where one goes in. That would explain them not talking too.
The first thing that got me thinking this way was that the whole incident occurred after hours. If I was going to pull a stunt with a tiger at a zoo, I’d wait around until they are asking people to “please leave”. THen when the crowds are all gone and there are no witnesses to get me arrested, I’d go for it. Also, 350 lbs sounds kinda small for a tiger to me. So maybe they picked out the smallest one for their stunt and convinced themselves that they were being “safe”. And never occurred to them that the smallest one might be the one with the most impressive jumping ability.
I’m just trying to put my self in the mind of a stupid punk kid. It’s not too hard since I was one once, a long long time ago in a land far away. I never cooked up something as retarded as dancing with a tiger though. Thank goodness.