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.
I cannot dispute that. wish that I could. won’t ever happen.
Yes, there is inbreeding with respect to some wild cat species in the wild because humans don’t give wild cats enough space. Tigers are a good example. The small wild cat species are probably not inbred – yet. The Siberian tiger is very inbred. Island (enclosed and limited) reserves or territories result in the gradual extinction of a wild cat species. This is due to people.
I guess you are referring to species other than cats? All wild cats, small or large, have large ranges. The world’s smallest cat (a wild cat species) – the rusty spotted cat – probably has a home range (territory) of several hectares or more. No enclosures or cages are large enough for cats. This is because it is not commercially viable to have enclosures that are the same size as the cat’s territory in the wild.
Ruth, those young men may have not paid to get in; that’s an interesting question. But keep in mind, as well you can imagine, the employees at the front gates at each turnstyle, are employed by the zoo to do basically a simple job: take money. give entrance. No doubt they are trained to look out for ‘crazies,’ but any adult -even when drug-influenced- can manage to look ‘normal’ enough to gain entry. I have to go back to one of my old hard drives to get the info on what time they entered the zoo…
Sorry, I should have said, these zoos do not introduce any more inbreeding into this species’ gene pool than that of their native habitat, in fact far less. Keep in mind, that native habitat is far more restricted now than it should be. Even still, these zoos, meaning those of the highest ethical standards, are very careful to maintain the widest, largest gene pool possible.
I hope so too. I am not pro-Zoo. We have a Children’s Zoo in Lincoln, nebraska, that does not keep species that require a large range of habitat. I wish that it wasn’t called a zoo, but the wallabies, river otters and small monkey spp. are kept in large enclosures. Only the peacocks/hens are allowed to roam freely.