Yes, I always support the tiger and blame the people. I always feel sorry for the tiger. When the tiger is shot I always feel very sad and upset. I don’t have much in the way of thoughts about the person who might have been injured or killed. I have sympathy for the injured people but my true sympathies and feelings are for the tiger. I don’t consider myself some sort of crazy animal activist (they are never crazy, by the way). I just like animals and want them to get a fair deal and be treated with respect.
Here is an example of why I feel like this…
TATIANA – a Siberian tiger
This is the story as I read it from Wikipedia. The facts of what happened are not clear so what follows is not completely factual but what might or possibly did happened.
Three young men drive up to the San Francisco Zoo. They have been drinking a bit and taking cannabis. Their names were Carlos Eduardo Sousa Jr., and brothers, Amritpal “Paul” and Kulbir Dhaliwal.
It is believed that these men wanted to lark around and taunted Tatiana who was in her concrete bunker (“grotto”). Her home was surrounded by a concrete wall almost 13 feet high. It is thought that the men used slingshots to attack Tatiana. It appears to have been highly provocative behavior. All of this is denied through their lawyer.
Well, Tatiana climbed her concrete wall! Yes, chips of concrete were found in her paws. She got out of a place that was meant to imprison her. The motivation to get out was, it seems, to attack those who allegedly attacked and taunted her.
Tatiana got to Carlos quickly and killed him with bites to the head and neck that fractured bones and a cut jugular vein. The brothers ran to a café, leaving a trial of blood. They were chased by Tatiana. They had been severely injured with deep scratches and bites. A zoo employee called 911.
The police took a while to get there partly because the zoo was locked down. There was chaos. The marksmen waited until Tatiana was sufficiently distanced from one of the brothers. The tiger was distracted, turned to face the police and the zoo staff and was shot through the forehead. I presume she was shot elsewhere too.
Tigers are amazingly tough and several bullets are often needed to kill them. She was cut up (and her paws cut off) and an autopsy (for animals it is called a “necropsy“) carried out. There was no human flesh in her stomach.
I hate the idea of cutting her paws off and cutting her up. Why? It is just seems unnecessarily brutal to me and compounds the whole sorry human mess.
I predict that one day there will be no tigers in the wild unless the tigers of Bhutan ensure their survival. Once they are extinct in the wild they will become extinct in zoos due to inbreeding causing sterility. The gene pool of zoo cats is limited.
The whole disaster is man made, humans created the chaos from beginning to the end. The beginning was putting a tiger in a concrete “grotto” when in the wild they have ranges that are massive. This is cruel.
The zoo enclosure was not safe, apparently. The wall should have been taller. It should have been over 16 feet tall, which tells you how bloody amazing tigers are, how athletic they are and how they should be allowed to express those skills in the wild.
For a tiger to jump and climb a concrete wall almost 13 feet tall shows us how desperate she was to get out. At least the bloody zoo let her keep her claws. A lot places have tigers declawed which damn near cripples them sometimes.
If a person cares about treating animals fairly and decently I believe that person is bound to come down on the side of the tiger under these circumstances.
There are other instances of tigers attacking zoo staff at zoos in their cage. The tiger can never be blamed. When you think about it, all the blame must be with the people. People put the tiger in the cage. People walk into the cage and fail to ensure the tiger could not get into the cage they are in etc. etc.
Humans create the conditions under which they are attacked by tigers.
Tigers should not be shot with bullets but with tranquillizers. When it comes to zoo tiger attacks, I am for the tiger everytime.
Note: Caroline, a PoCer asked me to write about Tatiana. I have and it hurts as usual.
Thank you. Michael. My comment was a bit rash. I did not mean to say that there is no inbreeding. Which reminds me, those poor Persians did not ask for such stupidity from humans, did they? Why would our species do this to the little creatures; did they have a say in the matter? Ask TICA or the CFA, perhaps.
Caroline, the gene pool of all wild cats in zoos is very narrow. There are not enough cats in the pool. This automatically results in inbreeding. Sorry if you are saying that wild cats in zoos are not inbred you are wrong.
Overall wild cats in captivity are not well managed.
Who allowed those drug crazed idiots into the zoo anyway? Surely there should be someone at the gate taking the entry fee and someone checking the visitors are not abusing the animals!
I HATE zoos with a passion, they are just money making peep shows at the expense of animals who should be living free.
R.I.P Tatiana and I hope Karma strikes all involved with her miserable un-natural life and needless cruel death.
I do not respect most. But Henry Doorly well, just understand that I am pro-tiger… you know that I am. We all are doing what we can.
http://www.omahazoo.com/about/zoo-news/details.aspx?ID=11
Michael, this is the one saving grace of highest-caliber zoos in the U.S.
They do breed in captivity, as we all know. That is not my point. My point is this: these zoos do not introduce inbreeding into the gene pool. I once upon a time told you this, when I was privy to a mating at the Henry Doorly, in Omaha.
Thanks Rudolph. I predict something similar. About 50 years is correct. One near certainty is that the tiger will become extinct. Humankind just does not have the ability to live side by side with the tiger on planet earth. Sad. I still plan to do an article about your visit to the tiger reserve.