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Would you take your precious baby to a zoo where there had recently been a fatal tiger attack?
I recently did just that with my 1 year old, Jordan. Below are mommy and baby giraffes we saw
right off the bat. I felt a bond with the mommy giraffe and I kissed my
baby while she was snuggling hers.
We've
been huge zoo-goers since the kids were born.
Even as infants, the boys
went to the San Francisco Zoo at least a few times a month. The zoo has been a big
part of our lives, and we're apparently in good company- Zoologist Ron
McGill of the Miami Metro Zoo said "More people visit zoos each year
than all professional sports combined." Zoos apparently get 150 million
visitors annually.
Until recently, we hadn't been to the San Francisco Zoo (or any other zoo, for that matter), since the fatal tiger attack on Christmas Day 2007.
Rundown of Tatiana's Murderous Rampage
Around
closing time on Christmas (somewhere around 4:30), a small pack of
drunk, stoned, jerky boys (brothers Paul Dhaliwal, 19, and Kulbir
Dhaliwal, 23, and Carlos Sousa Jr., 17) went over to the big cats area
of the San Francisco Zoo and started taunting the lions and tigers.
For
a more thorough discussion of whether they were indeed taunting the
tigers, see below. In sum, allegations are that they were yelling and
roaring at the animals, waving their arms, throwing things into their
cages and probably had slingshots. Suffice it to say that they really
riled up the animals.
The Dhaliwal brothers are by all accounts
local tyrants who get drunk and act up and terrorize their neighbors.
They have at least one unrelated drunk-and-disorderly type charge
pending (from September 2007). In one of Sousa's last myspace entries,
he said he was 'high' - Carlos' myspace page here.
At
any rate, they succeeded in provoking a fight-or-flight response in a
350-pound Siberian tiger named Tatiana, and she was able, in that
frenzied state, to escape her grotto.
As it turns out, the wall that Tatiana was able to leap over was almost 4 feet shorter than the recommended height for tigers.
Tatiana
initially attacked the older brother, Kulbir, but his friend Carlos
Sousa successfully drew Tatiana's attention away from Kulbir towards
himself. She then attacked Sousa, fatally wounding him with a slash to the neck.
The
injured brothers fled, leaving their friend bleeding and dying there
right outside Tatiana's enclosure, where his body was subsequently
found by police. Because Kulbir had been attacked first, the brothers
left a trail of blood, which police believe the tiger followed for 300
yards up a zoo pathway towards the Terrace Cafe.
Here's a
picture of the Terrace Cafe yesterday. As it turns out, the place where
I was standing when I took this photo is about where the tiger was
eventually killed.
One thing that struck me yesterday is that the Terrace Cafe is far from the big cats area. 300 yards is a long way to run, bleeding and running from an angry Siberian Tiger.
They must have been scared out of their minds. For a video of the crazy aftermath at the Terrace Cafe, click here.
The
tiger was loose for about 20 minutes. After killing Sousa, Tatiana
specifically went after the Dhaliwal brothers, although others were
around. The tiger attacked only those three men who were there
together, and no one else.
The brothers ran to the Terrace Cafe
(where they'd eaten earlier) and started frantically beating on the
door, trying to get the half-wits who work there to let them in, which
they wouldn't because the Terrace Cafe had closed.
I say
half-wits because when I was there yesterday, nobody at working at the
Terrace Cafe seemed to have any idea about the tiger attacks. I
