Posted on 07/18/2004 6:21:32 PM PDT by missyme
MIAMI (Reuters) - A Florida woman who offered up a Yorkshire pig as bait to entice an escaped tiger back home will face charges of animal cruelty, local newspapers reported on Thursday.
Linda Meredith, of Loxahatchee where "Bobo" the tiger was killed by wildlife officers on Tuesday in a shooting his owner labeled a "murder," is being punished for putting the piglet in a car trunk, an official told the Palm Beach Post.
"I was appalled," said Palm Beach County Animal Care and Control Director Diane Sauve. "Carrying an animal in a trunk in 90-degree (32 degrees Celsius) heat, where it's probably 140 degrees (60 degrees Celsius) inside, is not acceptable."
Meredith had urged sheriff's deputies to hold the piglet by its hind legs or twist its ears to make it squeal and attract Bobo, who spent 24 hours as a fugitive after escaping from former B movie Tarzan actor Steve Sipek's home, 50 miles north of Miami. The deputies declined to use the pig.
Meredith said she also was outraged to find out she could face animal cruelty charges.
"I can't believe they have the gall," she told the Palm Beach Post. "I was just trying to help the tiger find his way back home. Apparently, it's not nice to be nice."
Meredith said that the trunk of her Cadillac was air conditioned and that she had planned to eat the pig anyway once it had grown up.
Wildlife officers had hoped to shoot Bobo, a 600-pound (270-kg), six-year-old Bengal tiger, with tranquilizer darts to end his dash for freedom. But he was killed by an officer armed with an M4 rifle after he said the big cat lunged at him.
Sipek, who played Tarzan in two movies in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and who has a permit to keep exotic animals as pets, decried the shooting as unnecessary. Covered in the blood of the cat he raised since it was a cub, Sipek has given a string of TV interviews saying Bobo's death was plain murder.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission has been inundated with hate mail and phone calls from distraught cat lovers, and supporters have set up a Web site to collect donations to help Sipek protect his other animals -- another tiger, two lions, a black leopard and a cougar.
Neither Sauve nor Meredith could be reached for comment
She plans on eating the Pig?? she's a Pig for suggesting that!
Accepting the lady's offer of her pampered piglet could well have saved the tiger's life by luring it into a prepared ambush by several tranq shooters.
No good deed goes unpunished.
Why? A nice ham dinner is pretty good, so are the pork chops.
Get a life.
Mmmmm...bacon....
One does wonder if the officers suggested to the woman that she hold the piglet by the hind legs while it squealed (rather than they, themselves, doing so).
Get a life Get a lesson on eating right Ham is the worst thing you can eat, full of salt and fat...
You ain't seen nothing yet. These same folks also have the power to tell you what you can build on your property, whether you can drill a well or cut down a tree, and who all you must allow to tromp all over your land.
The loony Left loves to cry about the Patriot Act. Want to hear something funny? Environmental and animal-cruelty laws restrict our civil rights way more than the Patriot Act ever could.
Are you a believer yet?
"Meredith" has the "gall" to think she has brains. What an a$$wipe. Trying to save the tiger is admirable, but not by doing that with a pig. Meredith should have stuffed herself into that trunk and offered herself as a lure. I hope the pig is okay and I hope the pig has been taken from her. I hope Meredith gets the stiffest punishment possible (which is not ever enough when it comes to animal cruelty).
Turkey bacon less fat and salt, Eating Pigs have no nutritional value...
And? ;-)
What a bunch of asinine petty govt bureaucrats!
I would tell these peta/spca gestapo pigs to go stuff an apple down their own J F'n Kerry throats!
Right On! I agree..Sometimes only Female freepers have a clue on what truly is Animal Cruelty...
OK. And why is it preferable to whack a turkey, rather than a pig?
Eating Pigs have no nutritional value...
False.
I am a believer that you do not treat Animals with cruelty.
She had no business bringing her Pig as bait, she was wrong "Wrong" as two men sleeping together
You do not need to eat a Pig, there are other farm animals you can eat and be satisfied. People are much healthier when they do not consume pork.
Of course, if she had left a baby or toddler to die in the car, they'd let her go.
Who the hell are you to lecture people on what they should eat? Part of Hillary's army of fools? Eat what you want AND LEAVES OTHERS ALONE. Go take your silly animal rights garbage somewhere else. Never ending supply of do gooders out there to dictate what others should do. Stick it.
I've been critical of cops many times here, but this appears to be a "good shoot". My only criticism would be that the rifle they were using was probably undersized for the task at hand.
The should have shot Bobo with slugs or a .308 carbine.
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