S.F. Zoo Tragedy - Tiger

Why is everyone so concerned about the damn tiger! A guy gets killed whether and all anyone can talk about is why the tiger had to die.

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Preferring a stinking cat over a human.

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Hmmm... lets see.

World population of humans: 6,602,224,175

World population of Siberian tigers: 430

LOTS of us, few of them. Bummer for the dude killed and his family, tragic for the tiger population. Were the numbers reversed, it would be a bummer for the tiger and tragic for our population.

They're still investigating - SFGate, and no doubt will be for some time.

Zoo plan, according to this article, was to have zoo staff recapture. They were not first on the scene, the EMTs

Three paramedics were the first to find Sousa's body after someone called 911. The boy was lying near the grotto with a wide gash across his neck; the emergency workers, along with an ambulance driver, were told of additional victims outside the Terrace Cafe restaurant, about 300 yards east. When they arrived, they found the tiger standing over one of the brothers.

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and then the cops (non SWAT, 2 plainclothes, 2 uniformed patrol) were.

Alerted by frantic calls from the zoo, four officers arrived in two police cars and tracked the tiger to the cafe. The tiger was sitting next to one victim but, when the officers arrived, it resumed its attack.

"The tiger jumped back on top," police Sgt. Steve Mannina said. "The victim had blood on his face."

The animal, distracted by the four officers and by the flashing red lights of the patrol cars, abandoned its victim and advanced toward the officers, Mannina said. The officers all fired their .40-caliber handguns, striking the tiger an unknown number of times.

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All that video with cops and shotguns was shot after the tiger was down.

If we get rid of all of the tigers, then nobody would ever be killed by one again. We must rid the world of this danger for ourselves and our children.

All cats are dangerous look at this beast!! he must be exterminated,




Fwiw, if these Tigers especially Siberians aren't kept in zoos, they will last the next 10 years as a viable species, so it's captivity or death.

Look, the death of this one tiger is irrelvant to the long term survival of the species. It's not more zoos, or letting a tiger eat a human because there are 6 billion humans, and only 400 tigers that is going to make a difference, it is TWO THINGS:
1. appropriate habitat for tigers
2. no more poaching tigers for chinese medicine

best way to do this? Killing more tigers....by licenced hunters who pay big bucks for the chance to hunt and infuse the local economy with money and give the locals a reason to not poach and actually turn poachers in because more poachers mean less millionare hunters coming to town to spend big money.

Oh, and if it was the last stinking tiger on the earth, and it was about to rip out the throat of a homeless guy, I'd still kill the tiger.

The fact is you have a wild animal kept in captivity that was accidentally or intentionally allowed to escape its confinement, the tiger did deliberately escape so it go out and kill people.

The Tiger is not to blame for this tragedy the zoo keepers knew the animal was dangerous and needed to be contained, all blame for the incident should fall strictly on them. The fact is human negligence lead to the animal escaping and causing harm, the tiger was just being a tiger.

I'm a big supporter of animal rights so I certainly think its a tragedy that these magnificent creatures are on the brink of extinction. However I think in this situation the authorities had every right to bring down the animal by whatever means necessary. Its tragic that the animal got out, its tragic that the animal caused harm to people and its tragic that it cost the animal its life as well, the whole damn thing is a tragedy.

The Zoo apparently had a "shooting team" designated for this type of incident but it wasn't mobilized, at least before the cops showed up. SFGate is reporting that there are huge management problems at the Zoo, which some sense here. The Navy talks about the "chain of causation"- the series of mistakes and bad decisions that together lead to a major accident. Sounds like the same effect at work here.

Once the facts are straight who is at fault for what gets a little clearer.

The Zoo was at fault for having the tigers in an enclousure, built over 40 years ago that was only 12 1/2 feet high. They believed no tiger could leap that high and get out. But one could and did.

The incident occurred on Christmas day when only a skeleton crew was working at the zoo. Only about 20 visitors were in the zoo at the time. It was closing time and getting dark. 3 youths, possibly high (maybe a fourth according to one witness), were taunting the tigers. One tiger leapt out and attacked the three. 2 of the three ran to a zoo cafe 300 yards away and told zoo employees. Zoo employees (some armed with trank guns and other with firearms) scrambled to find out if the story was true, get visitors out, find the tiger and call the cops. The tiger, having mauled one man, who later died, tracked the other two to the cafe and attacked one of them. It was shot by cops with .40 S&W handguns and died as it was attacking one of the two brothers.

The brothers refused to talk with the cops for days and police said they were "hostile". They refused to call the family of their dead friend to explain what had happened. Their family has hired the lawyer for Scott Peterson to sue the zoo and possibly defend them.

Hands down the construction of the enclosure was faulty.

I don't fault the zoo for what it did once the alarm sounded.

As a fella said life is hard and it's harder if you're stupid. If you're 19 years old and can't think of nothing better to do than ditch your family on Christmas night to go taunt a tiger, well...

This will be a circus.

tipoc

Hmmm... lets see.

World population of humans: 6,602,224,175

World population of Siberian tigers: 430

LOTS of us, few of them. Bummer for the dude killed and his family, tragic for the tiger population. Were the numbers reversed, it would be a bummer for the tiger and tragic for our population.

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Your numbers may be viewed differently if it's you who's the one who gets eaten.

But I can see your point.

One thing I have to comment on re: taunting the tigers. If you have ever been to a zoo, you have likely witnessed animals being teased. It is an unfortunate fact of zoos in general. At every single zoo on the planet, someone, somewhere, is teasing the animals. Typically it is kids so young they do not even realize they are teasing, but yeah, there are a fair share of those who really should know better.

However, given that, are tigers usually kept in an enclosure with walls low enough that it can leap over if taunted? These guys sound like, no are idiots, and yeah, they screwed up royally, but it could have easily been a crying child, or too many balloons bobbing around, dirty diaper smells, or something equally as trivial that set the tiger off. We do not know how a wild animal will react, simple as that, although I imagine shooting one with a slingshot should seem like a bad career choice.

I am not trying to defend these morons (personal judgement call here) but it is painfully obvious that this could have been an even more horrific disaster involving children. Regardless of what we think of these idiots, unless the DA decides to hold them culpable, they will likely end up with millions of zoo/city $$ in their pockets because that zoo was/is unsafe and poorly run. No amount of arguing about vodka and slingshots can change 12.5 foot walls, sorry.

What has not been widely reported, and has been mostly forgotten as a news story is a report 7 or 8 years ago wherein a SF zoo visitor claimed he notified the zoo keepers that one of the tigers had entered the moat. He was supposedly met with disdain and ignored acording to his report. If true, it seems a tragic pattern of events perhaps all too common at the SF zoo.

What is becoming clear is that there was confusion, chaos, and sadly, death Christmas Day, with the zoo staff initially botching the response. These idiot guys are to blame, but the zoo keepers, IMNSHO, are just as involved.

Otony

If some drunk ares hole shoot me with a sling shot. I would have no problem jumping a fence and beating him to a bloody pulp. To bad the tiger was shot dead. The tiger just cleaned the gene pool.

I did not read all posts.

I thought I read where the fencing had been raised after the fedder was injured about a year ago.

Slingshot harrassment=suicide by tiger but the facts will probably be 'suppressed' in any liability trial.

As I understand it, taunting or harrassing zoo animals is a misdeamenor offense in CA; I will have to check my own state laws. So, not just stupid but also illegal.

As I have stated in other places, I don't place animal life over human life however stupid is as stupid does and the gene pool must be cleaned out occasionally, so I find it hard to get too upset when folks to stupid to know better tease an animal capable of killing them without working up a sweat....and then are surprised when it does.

Time will tell if these youngsters were at fault or not, but if they did tease and taunt then I have no sympathy for them at all. I guess I have more in common with the tiger than with some of my fellow man, but I can live with that.

It's tragic - but I wonder what weapon
was used to kill the tiger.
__________________
S & W SW1911 5" Bbl. .45 ACP/.400 CorBon
S & W 625 5" Bbl. .45 ACP/.45 Auto Rim
S & W 686P 4" Bbl.Len. .357 Mag/.38 Spcl.+P
S & W 60 3" Bbl. Len. .357 Mag./.38 Spcl.+P

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That sounds like good choices for bringing him down. LOL.

Wow! Yeah, I could be wrong, but I think CCW is illegal there

Honestly, I think it is sad for both people and kitty. On one hand (and I am sure I will get charred for this) there are certainly people in this world that I think deserve to be mauled for their cruelty to animals and people alike.

I would have to shoot the tiger too. I always carry a magnum wheelgun at the zoo along with my camera and my kids. I cannot imagine anyone thinking it cannot happen. I would avoid it if there was a way though just cuz I love animals. Still people want to pretend they are not food. I cannot imagine why. Perhaps this will wake some antis up to the benefit of CCW?

Now to keep the firearms related, what loads/HG did they use and what shot was lethal?

Shooter429

This was mentioned before. The tiger was hit with at least 3 rounds of 40 S&W fired by 4 SFPD officers. Details of the autopsy of the animal have not been released to the public yet.

To carry legally in Ca. you need a permit from the county Sheriffs Dept. in your locality, to have a clean legal record and prove or show there is a reason to carry concealed. These are not easy to get in most counties. Ca. is a issued permit carry state.

Latest development...It was reported that the cops found the cell phone of one of the two brothers (aged 23 and 19) who survived. Because no charges have been filed against the brothers the cops need to have their permission to download any pics on the phone. The brothers have refused them this. The family of the dead boy (aged 17) have asked the brothers to let the cops see the pics. So far the brothers have refused.

tipoc

As I understand it, taunting or harrassing zoo animals is a misdeamenor offense in CA; I will have to check my own state laws. So, not just stupid but also illegal.

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Taunting and harassing sure. However firing things at them with slingshots, throwing pine cones at them, and generaly causing pain to animals for bravado and fun could easily be felony animal cruelty. The fact that it lead to a chain of events that caused the death of the animal and one of them is a factor as well.

It is a shame they did not get the pictures from the cell phone before it went back into thier possession, it probably had pictures of them documenting thier own criminal behavior.
However kudos to the police in a place like SF for respecting thier rights in that manner by not getting the pictures and creating a reason after the fact to legaly justify it.
The end does not justify the means.

It is illegal but as of yet the police have no hard evidence that they were doing anything other than yelling at the animals. Throwing things, slingshots, etc. they don't have evidence of. The young men refused to speak to the police.

Time will tell on this

tipoc

I'm not sure that the three victims deserved what they got, but on the other hand, it could be expected: any reasonable person has either the good sense or decency to avoid antagonizing such dangerous creatures.
The tiger is certainly not to blame, it acted naturally: it viewed the three victims as a threat, and it acted accordingly.
However, there's no reason to think that it was shot in vengeance. Two of the victims were still alive, and the police felt that they could be saved. The tiger, unfortunately, stood in the way of saving the victims, and a sentient life comes before a non-sentient one 100% of the time.

If Siberian tigers were not in zoos, they'd be dead--shot in self-defense or sports hunting by humans. They'd either be utterly exterminated or dead ude to a lack of breeding within twenty years.
While I don't think that life in a small enclosure in a zoo does justice to such a beautiful animal, what's the alternative? At least it can be seen and admired by all in a zoo, and admiration means money: money that can be used to pay for caring for the animal and others, and even reintroducing it to the wild in the future. Life in a zoo or death, take your pick.
On the whole, it's a sad event for most parties involved. Though the victims did cause the attack out of their own volition, the zoo was also at fault by holding the tiger in an enclosure it could escape through neither an accident or negligence, but out of a faulty assumption.
What's worst is that resulting lawsuits may well destroy the zoo.