From another FR poster - I quote:
COOPER: Jack, theres a report from an unnamed source from one of todays papers, saying that the young men involved in this attack may have taunted the tiger. They had slingshots on them at the time and a bottle of vodka in their car.
The bottom line is we dont know what happened. Theyre not talking, which is the most important thing for them to do. But what exactly would it take to provoke an animal like this to jump and attack?
JACK HANNA, ANIMAL EXPERT: Im Ive said, Anderson, all along since you watched my first interview, and I apologized to the world about, if Im wrong. But since its the first time, that three boys that really didnt love animals on Christmas day at 5 p.m. when its getting dark, going to a zoo, No. 1, theres something wrong with that altogether.
No. 2, when you go across that fence, you have a fence here. You have a little bit of territory, what I call no-mans territory. Then you have a moat. When somebody crosses into that no-mans territory. What would somebody do if they came into your home or your yard. You would go, gosh, whats that?
Now lets just say there was a slingshot or something involved. Can you imagine what that tiger was going through, sitting there getting pounded by two or three guys. I mean, give me a break, you know, the moat worked for 30-something years.
Im not saying that obviously the cat got out. If thats the reason then, you really had to provoke something to do that. Using the word taunting really isnt harsh enough as far as what this cat went through, if thats what happened. And Ill tell you, its sick.
COOPER: Its remarkable that the young man who died, his father has come out and said he wants these two other young men, these alleged friends of his son, to at least call him and let him know what happened. They havent called him. They havent called to apologize. They havent called to check in on him at all. And still to this day, theyre not cooperating with they havent been cooperating with police. Or are reluctantly cooperating, to the extent that they have.
So the bottom line is, they should be the ones coming forward. And theyre the only ones who know for sure what happened.
HANNA: I bet youll find out, if they ever start talking, which I hope they do for that fathers sake, as well as those new folks, that the world will then know what happened that night.
But I said from the very first moment that this whole thing doesnt sound right to me after 40 years of doing this. And only one death, Anderson, in the last 45 years, weve been keeping record, in the last 40 to 50 years, one death in the zoo, and thats 2.5 billion- plus people in the country going to zoos. Id take my odds any day of the week with 2.5 billion visitors to a zoo and we have one death. You know, something is wrong here.
COOPER: As someone who is affiliated with zoos and has been most of your life, theres clearly a responsibility on the zoos part to keep visitors safe. It is a hard balance, though, I mean, if someone is taunting the animal.
HANNA: Right, Anderson. Obviously, the zoo is responsible. But, again, you know, what are we supposed to do? At NASCAR, if you have a fence and you cross that fence to go inside where the racecar are going at 200 miles an hour, and you get hit, you know, how high are we supposed to make fences? How high are we supposed to make moats? I mean, you know, we can only do so much in the zoological world.
COOPER: Do you think this is going to lead to changes in other zoos around the country? I mean, do you think other zoos are now checking their security barriers, checking the their enclosures?
HANNA: Theres no doubt about it theres going to be some other there will be some changes made. People know what to do. They have to come to a zoological park and respect the animals.
You know, the whole one word is respect. When someone comes to your house you respect it. When I go to the wild, like you do, you respect the gorillas and whatever. And I respect. People should respect that this is the animals home.
COOPER: Jack Hanna. Appreciate your comments, Jack. Thanks for being with us.
HANNA: Thanks a lot, Anderson.
“Link please????? “
Don’t go getting hysterical. Sheesh. I have a new mac computer and I’m still working on the cut and paste thing - however, I said it was from AC 360.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0801/01/acd.02.html