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gategrrl I'm ten days late with this, but, oh well. Apparently the three youths (they were NOT children) taunted the Siberian tiger by standing up on the railing/fence just outside its enclosure. They all had alcohol and pot in their systems, and it's very possible they were throwing things at the animal.
The article reports that there had been reports through that day of a group of young men being rowdy and disturbing the peace (such as it is, in the SD zoo), but no one put it together or did anything about it.
I think the zoo has to have stricter policies on public drunkeness and rowdy behavior, not to mention automatically ejecting families with children who persist in bothering the animals in their enclosures. As the tiger showed, not all these animals are defenseless, but they have little to NO power behind their fences to get back at people who drive them mad and trigger their hunting or running reflexes.
This story reminds me of another one - where a little girl in a Minnesota zoo jumped the fence, was bitten by a meerkat defending its territory. ALL the meerkats in that encloser had to be killed in order to be tested for rabies. Why? Because the 9 year old's parents didn't want her to get a rabies shot, even though she made a real effort to touch them. Five meerkats, murdered because of selfishness. I hope that family were given a bill for the cost of replacing those poor animals. Three of them were kits.
It's too bad there isn't a Stupid Test before people go into the zoo. It's as if some people have a short circuit in the brains that make them think that just because an animal is behind bars, or plexiglass, or whatever, that it's used to people and will have a song and dance at the ready. Fortunately, I think most people wouldn't dream of taunting the animals (not intentionally, anyway) or provoking them. But yeah, Darwin, baby. Darwin works. If it has to be a tiger making Darwin's law work, so be it.
The article reports that there had been reports through that day of a group of young men being rowdy and disturbing the peace (such as it is, in the SD zoo), but no one put it together or did anything about it.
I think the zoo has to have stricter policies on public drunkeness and rowdy behavior, not to mention automatically ejecting families with children who persist in bothering the animals in their enclosures. As the tiger showed, not all these animals are defenseless, but they have little to NO power behind their fences to get back at people who drive them mad and trigger their hunting or running reflexes.
This story reminds me of another one - where a little girl in a Minnesota zoo jumped the fence, was bitten by a meerkat defending its territory. ALL the meerkats in that encloser had to be killed in order to be tested for rabies. Why? Because the 9 year old's parents didn't want her to get a rabies shot, even though she made a real effort to touch them. Five meerkats, murdered because of selfishness. I hope that family were given a bill for the cost of replacing those poor animals. Three of them were kits.
It's too bad there isn't a Stupid Test before people go into the zoo. It's as if some people have a short circuit in the brains that make them think that just because an animal is behind bars, or plexiglass, or whatever, that it's used to people and will have a song and dance at the ready. Fortunately, I think most people wouldn't dream of taunting the animals (not intentionally, anyway) or provoking them. But yeah, Darwin, baby. Darwin works. If it has to be a tiger making Darwin's law work, so be it.
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Date: 2008-01-29 11:46 pm (UTC)Some people are complete and utter idiots. It doesn't help that in the tiger instance, the wall was too short, but since the tiger hadn't breached the wall before, I can only conclude that without badgering and taunting, it wouldn't have *thought* to try going over that wall.
The picture that comes into my mind, weirdly, must come from a wildlife show: a juvenile baboon teasing a hyena, or leopard - and then getting it's ass eaten toot-sweet.