FW: [EthologicalEthics] Digest Number 1249 - Tigers

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EthologicalEthics

[EthologicalEthics ]

Thursday, December 27, 2007 8:57 PM

EthologicalEthics

[EthologicalEthics] Digest Number 1249

 

 

1. REDECORATING ZOOS: LET'S REMEMBER THAT TIGERS AREN'T COUCHES - Lette

Posted by: " BEKOFF MARC " marc.bekoff

Wed Dec 26, 2007 5:40 am ((PST))

 

letters

 

Dear Editor - would you please publish this is a letter to the editor in

your paper concerning the recent tiger attack

(http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/12/26/MN0LU4M2T.DTL & t

sp=1)

at the San Francisco Zoo ... many thanks, Marc Bekoff, Professor, University

of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado

 

Homepage: http://literati.net/Bekoff

Marc Bekoff and Jane Goodall (EETA): www.ethologicalethics.org _______

 

REDECORATING ZOOS: LET'S REMEMBER THAT TIGERS AREN'T COUCHES

 

Once again there's been a horrific tragedy centering on a captive animal. At

the San Francisco Zoo, Tatiana, a four-year old Siberian tiger, escaped from

her jail cell - that's what her cage was to her - and mauled a man to death

and severely injured two other visitors. As a result, Tatiana was killed. A

year ago Tatiana had attacked a keeper and chewed his arm. Tatiana had lived

for a time at the Denver Zoo and was shipped to San Francisco because the

zoo there wanted to redecorate their facility. These innocent victims

suffered because large carnivores simply do not belong in zoos, and neither

should these sentient and emotional beings be shipped here and there as if

they were couches. Tigers and other animals have a point of view on what

happens to them and they don't like being treated as if they are inanimate

objects. So, it's not surprising that at some point when they regain their

freedom they do what's natural to them. They aren't bad or evil, they're

highly evolved natural born killers who don't like being imprisoned. When

will zoos learn this lesson? How many more innocent people and animals will

have to be injured or killed? When will zoos stop displaying animals who are

there for the zoo's financial benefit? Robert Jenkins, director of animal

care at the San Francisco Zoo said " We don't know how it was able to get

out, " ... " The tiger should not have been able to jump (out).

This is the first thing we will be investigating. " Isn't it about time that

he and others including the Association of Zoos and Aquariums start

investigating how to rid zoos of these animals and send them off to

sanctuaries so they can live out their lives with dignity?

 

Marc Bekoff, Professor

University of Colorado, Boulder

Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

http://literati.net/Bekoff

 

 

2. S.F. tiger maulings probed: Experts find it hard to believe the big

Posted by: " BEKOFF MARC " marc.bekoff

Thu Dec 27, 2007 3:35 am ((PST))

 

http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/593164.html

 

S.F. tiger maulings probed: Experts find it hard to believe the big cat

escaped on its own By Carrie Peyton Dahlberg - cpeytondahlberg

Published 12:00 am PST Thursday, December 27, 2007

 

If a Siberian tiger escaped on its own to fatally maul a teenager at the San

Francisco Zoo, it would be a feat that reshapes what is known about the

powerful but ponderous animal.

 

" They don't jump very high and they don't jump very far, " said Ron Tilson,

one of the nation's top tiger authorities who helped write the guidelines on

how to safely restrain and care for zoo tigers.

 

" Think of a sumo wrestler "

much too massive for leaping

and that's the tiger, said Tilson, director of conservation at the

Minnesota Zoo.

 

While Tilson is trying to keep an open mind about early accounts that

suggested the tiger somehow crossed a wide moat and a tall fence, " something

about this is just contrary to too much history " of observed tiger behavior,

he said.

 

San Francisco Zoo officials have said that no door was unlocked when a tiger

named Tatiana left its enclosure on Christmas Day, killing 17-year-old

Carlos Sousa Jr. of San Jose and injuring two other young men.

 

The two injured men, reportedly brothers who knew Sousa, were in stable

condition at San Francisco General Hospital Wednesday. They were expected to

make a full recovery from deep bites and claw wounds on their heads, necks,

arms and hands, said Dr. Rochelle Dicker.

 

The zoo was closed Wednesday as police opened a criminal investigation,

saying they were ruling nothing out, from carelessness to a purposeful

attempt to let the tiger loose.

 

The zoo will remain closed today, but could open Friday.

 

Tatiana was displayed in a pit-like grotto, separated from the public by a

15-foot-wide moat, a small strip of land beyond the moat, and then a

stucco-like fence that rose 20 feet high on the tiger's side, said zoo

spokesman Paul Garcia.

 

" There's no way " a tiger could get past such barriers on its own, said Mary

Lynn Haven, who keeps 175 tigers and about 100 other big cats at a sanctuary

outside Knoxville, Tennessee.

 

Her sanctuary, called Tiger Haven, keeps tigers behind chain-link fences

12 feet high.

 

That's common for private facilities, said Tilson, and tigers don't go over

those 12-foot fences, even though zoos are advised to make their walls a

little taller: at least 16 feet high, with a tilting edge atop that.

 

Tilson said the committee that prepared those enclosure guidelines for zoos

had hundreds of years of combined experience working with tigers.

Committee members took every piece of evidence about the animals' jumping

ability, then added a few feet to ensure safety.

 

" We did not want our names on a document that said this is how far a tiger

jumps, and then have one clear a zoo moat, " he said.

 

Siberian tigers have a long reach, and can stretch 12 feet from toe to toe,

but when they're leaping, the waistline of their body doesn't get much

farther than 5 to 8 feet off the ground, he said.

 

Unlike more nimble cats, they rarely climb trees.

 

For Tilson, the Christmas Day carnage at the San Francisco Zoo was tragic

not only for the young men involved, but also for an " extraordinarily rare "

animal that he helped bring into the world.

 

As coordinator of the nation's species survival plan for tigers, Tilson

heads a group that chooses each potential mother and father, selecting for

genetic diversity and other factors before shifting the animals from zoo to

zoo for breeding.

 

Only about 400 Siberian tigers, also known as Amur tigers after the Amur

River basin in Russia, remain in the wild, said Tilson. Another 147 are

housed in U.S. zoos.

 

It was unclear Wednesday evening whether Tatiana made a leap unknown in the

annals of tiger captivity, or whether she was somehow aided, by either

neglect or a deliberate act.

 

" We're still conducting an investigation, it's still inconclusive, and we're

working with the Police Department, " Garcia said.

 

Police Chief Heather Fong told reporters Wednesday that the department has

opened a criminal investigation to " determine if there was human involvement

in the tiger getting out or if the tiger was able to get out on its own. "

 

She wouldn't comment on whether the tiger was taunted.

 

Because the zoo has no video surveillance, police said, the investigation

will be based on witness statements and physical evidence.

 

The San Francisco Chronicle reported that authorities think all three men

were attacked near Tatiana's enclosure, and then the tiger followed the two

survivors toward a zoo cafe, where she attacked a second time.

 

Officers who arrived soon after the 5 p.m. maulings shot the tiger. The two

surviving young men, 19- and 23-year-old brothers, were hospitalized and

underwent surgery for their injuries.

 

Once the tiger got loose, it's not surprising that she attacked, said

Tilson. The only surprise was that two of her three victims survived.

 

" Tigers are alpha predators. They hunt and kill animals for meat, and that

includes humans, " he said.

 

Along with police, the Association of Zoos and Aquariums will also review

exactly what happened in San Francisco.

 

The association posted a press release on its Web site saying that the San

Francisco Zoo would have to make a full report to the association's

accreditation committee.

 

However, the association has had " a huge problem with enforcement " in the

past in responding to animal deaths and escapes, said Marc Bekoff, a

University of Colorado, Boulder, professor emeritus and a critic of zoos.

 

" I think the AZA cares very much about people and animal safety, but they're

too lax and too slow, " said Bekoff, whose book " The Emotional Lives of

Animals " was published earlier this year.

 

An association spokesman did not return calls from The Bee on Wednesday.