Escaped tiger kills one, injures two in SF zoo

[Ed Mahmoud]

Escaped tiger kills one, seriously injures two in San Francisco zoo

[Ed Mahmoud]

Escaped tiger kills one, seriously injures two in San Francisco zoo

One minute you're eating dinner in the zoo's cafe, the next minute you're being mauled to death. And on Christmas Day.

[HURAKAN]

You can take the tiger out of the wild, but not the wild out of the tiger. Just a normal lesson for anyone that visits the zoo.

[Cyclenall]

They should just get rid of that tiger already. It mauled a zoo-keeper a year ago.

[Ed Mahmoud]

They should just get rid of that tiger already. It mauled a zoo-keeper a year ago.

Police officer shot and killed it when it charged him...

[Ed Mahmoud]

Never, ever, taunt an escaped 300 pound Siberian tiger...

[HURAKAN]

Poor animal. It was probably just being itself.

[Dionne]

We are not as high on the list of predators as we once thought.

Cage an animal that can escape and kill. We are not alone.

[HURAKAN]

Article

Champawat Man-eating Tigress
One notorious man-eating tigress known as Champawat killed some 200 men and women before being driven out of Nepal. She moved to another location, this time in India, and continued to kill bringing her total up to 436 before she was tracked down and killed in 1937. She was known to enter villages at night or even during daylight, roaring and intimidating people to flee in panic to their huts.

The Champawat tigress was, as man eaters usually are, extremely cunning, and she was only found by Jim Corbett because he managed to follow the trail of blood the tigress left behind after killing her last victim; a 16-year-old girl. Later examination of the tigress showed the upper and lower canine teeth on the right side of her mouth were broken -- the upper one in half, the lower one right down to the bone. This permanent injury, Corbett claimed, "had prevented her from killing her natural prey, and had been the cause of her becoming a man-eater."

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Taste for human flesh may be acquired by the consumption corpses which have lain unburied. During the Vietnam and Korean wars, soldiers became the victims of tigers who had acquired a taste for human flesh in this way. It have been shown that tigers will stalk groups of people bending down while working in a field or cutting grass, but will lose interest as soon as the people stand upright. Consequently, it has been hypothesized that some attacks are a simple case of mistaken identity.
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I was very surprised about that tigress, 436 humans. That most be the largest number of humanoids killed and eaten by an animal since our very early ancestors in East Africa or maybe after one large war.

[Category 5]

It's a Tiger doing what it does naturally, sadly it just happened to claim a human.

[Brent]

How did a tiger in captivity escape from an 18-foot tall wall and a 20-foot moat?

Very fishy. Apparently the police think it's fishy too.

[Miss Mary]

Poor animal. It was probably just being itself.

Thank you. My thoughts too. This animal is a predator. Pure and simple.

I am proud to say I will never attend or support a circus that uses animals and I can no longer frequent zoos. I firmly believe and I know I am in the extreme minority on this one, animals should not on display in cages. I firmly believe they belong in their natural habitat. But that ship sailed, long ago. I am not knocking the wonderful work zoos do in preserving certain species, but I just no longer find any enjoyment in attending a zoo and seeing animals caged or confined in man made areas. The last time I went to the zoo I watched a tiger pace back and forth in its tiny enclosure, just miserable. I stared into his eyes and yes, I am not embarrassed to admit this, I cried. I left soon after that and have not been back since.

[Brent]

SAN JOSE, Calif. - Two days after an escaped tiger killed a teenager at the San Francisco Zoo, the zoo director acknowledged Thursday that the wall around the animal's enclosure was 12 1/2 feet — well below the height recommended by the main accrediting agency for the nation's zoos.

[Dionne]

CNN is now reporting that the wall at 12'6" is 4' below the minimum standard.

I have a domestic shorthair cat.....an inside/outside cat. My cat is barely 10" tall and can jump to a windowsill that is at 60". He can jump six times his height.

I wonder if the same ratio holds true for the Siberian?

[Coredesat]

CNN is now reporting that the wall at 12'6" is 4' below the minimum standard.

I have a domestic shorthair cat.....an inside/outside cat. My cat is barely 10" tall and can jump to a windowsill that is at 60". He can jump six times his height.

I wonder if the same ratio holds true for the Siberian?

Probably not, given the much heavier weight of the tiger, but I imagine a tiger could get over a 12.5 ft wall with a running start without too many problems.

[Dionne]

Additional info from CNN says that at least one expert thinks the tiger could easily jump the 12'6" wall.

Look at it this way.....I'm 56 years old and I can get over an 8' wall with a running start.

There has been some talk about the 33' wide moat being empty of water.....according to wikipedia the Siberian tigers enjoy the water and are good swimmers. Here's the biggie.....if the moat had been full of water would that have prevented the tiger from getting a running start before scaling the wall?

[HURAKAN]

By the way, are the rest of the tigers still in the same cage?

[Stephanie]

All wild creatures are dangerous, caged or not. This one in particular since she already attacked her trainer.

With that being said, she was just being herself and she looked like one proud tigress. I wouldn't be surprised that something made her jump that wall, i.e. taunting.

These animals need to be in their own natural habitat. However, there's less and less of that available for many of these endangered species. I can only imagine the frustration and "sadness" as Miss Mary said that these wild animals go through being stuck in enclosures.

[Dionne]

All wild creatures are dangerous, caged or not. This one in particular since she already attacked her trainer.

With that being said, she was just being herself and she looked like one proud tigress. I wouldn't be surprised that something made her jump that wall, i.e. taunting.

These animals need to be in their own natural habitat. However, there's less and less of that available for many of these endangered species. I can only imagine the frustration and "sadness" as Miss Mary said that these wild animals go through being stuck in enclosures.

Yeah.....talk about original sin.....born in prison and spend your entire life in prison. I've got an idea. The next time one of them camera flashing bi-pods jumps up on that wall....lets eat em.

[Ptarmigan]

All wild creatures are dangerous, caged or not. This one in particular since she already attacked her trainer.

With that being said, she was just being herself and she looked like one proud tigress. I wouldn't be surprised that something made her jump that wall, i.e. taunting.

These animals need to be in their own natural habitat. However, there's less and less of that available for many of these endangered species. I can only imagine the frustration and "sadness" as Miss Mary said that these wild animals go through being stuck in enclosures.

That's why you never come close to wild animals, especially lions and tigers. I enjoy them from a safe distance.