Physicist Calculates Trajectory of Tiger At SF Zoo

KentuckyFC writes "Is it really possible for a 350-pound tiger to leap a 12.5-foot barrier from 33 feet away? (Said another way: a 159-kg tiger, a 3.8 m barrier, and 10 m away.) A physicist at Northeastern University has done the math, a straightforward problem in ballistics, and the answer turns out to be yes (abstract on the physics arXiv). But I guess we already knew that following the death of Carlos Souza at the paws of Tatiana, a Siberian Tiger he had allegedly been taunting at San Francisco zoo at the end of last year."

Comments

Hmm

[somersault]

Someone should warn SF Zoo!

Re:Hmm

[Smidge204]

Seriously, you'd think the people who designed the enclosure would know how to do that kind of math... or at least be smart enough to get a consult. I wonder how many aquarium designs they went through before they finally made one that held its contents properly...

=Smidge=

Re:Hmm

[dasbush]

Too late... FTA:

Is this kind of speed possible for a tiger? Apparently yes. Syed says tigers can reach speeds of 35 miles per hour with a run up of only a few feet so this enclosure was clearly no barrier to Tatiana.
After her leap for freedom, Tatiana killed 17-year old Carlos Souza and was shot dead after mauling two other victims. Emphasis mine.

Re:Hmm

[somersault]

Well TFA points out that the enclosure didn't meet the recommended height, but still passed a safety check by the same body that actually made the recommendations.. strange, and tragic.

Re:Hmm

[Megane]

The people who "designed the enclosure"? It was (IIRC) a WPA project from the 1930's. It wasn't designed, it was built.

The crazy part was that the people who ran the zoo had no idea of its height, or lack thereof. And when inspectors came through the zoo a couple of years ago, nobody mentioned to the zoo that the height was below standard. In other words, it's not a design problem (the height was fine when it was built, back when nobody was stupid enough to taunt tigers like that), it's a maintenance problem, as in keeping up to standards, or even knowing that you aren't.

Re:Hmm

[somersault]

That was kind of my whole point

Re:Hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

*whoosh*

Emphasis mine.

Re:Hmm

[paleo2002]

Quite tragic, as tigers are nearly extinct in the wild. Why does the myth of animals thirsting for human blood after killing a person continue to persist?

Re:Hmm

[Smidge204]

It's a design problem and a maintenance failure.

At some point somebody said "make the fence 12'-6" high" - that's the designer. That person did not properly consider the requirements (if they did at all) and the design was flawed. You can not say it was "fine when it was built" because it wasn't - the lack of failure up to this point can be better attributed to luck. Not that I feel bad for the people who taunted it, but a tiger could have jumped that fence for any reason at any time.

It was a maintenance failure because nobody bothered to check the design. Was the fence ever replaced or significantly repaired? Maybe the problem is deeper in the system... the "standards" that the inspectors used were flawed. It's a little unfair to blame administration when there are flawed requirements, or none at all. There should be a lot of re-evaluation going on in zoos across the country because of this.
=Smidge=

Re:Hmm

[AikonMGB]

The people that designed the enclosure were probably given some numbers to work with. They were probably told "we want you to design a lion pit with X square feet of living space and a 3-4m fence." The person/entity telling them to do this wouldn't necessarily know how to do the math. Unless the designer was knowledgeable with respect to animals, he would have no reason to doubt the zoo-keeper's (or w/e) instructions, and would go ahead and design it as per the request.

Aikon-

Re:Hmm

[longacre]

"The tiger didn't go crazy, that tiger went tiger!" --Chris Rock

Re:Hmm

[somersault]

The fact that she had injured two other people and was standing over one of them could have had something to do with it..

Re:Hmm

[Asahi Super Dry]

To a certain extent it's true. Tigers and other big cats don't naturally consider human beings prey and will generally avoid them in the wild, but if they happen to discover how easy we are to kill, there's a marked amount of recidivism.

Re:Hmm

[joeljkp]

the height was fine when it was built, back when nobody was stupid enough to taunt tigers like that I'm guessing it's more of an issue of a developing awareness of safety.

Oh, and the fact that there was a giant depression going on and nobody gave a shit about some moron taunting a tiger.

Re:Hmm

[paleo2002]

Yes its harsh, but . . .

1) There are 6.5 billion people in the world. How many tigers are there?

2) The people involved had a wall, moat, opposable thumbs, the largest brain-to-body-weight ratio in the animal kingdom, sentience, and at least 12 years of general education between them and the tiger. Who has the advantage in this scenario?

Re:Hmm

[somersault]

Err.. when you're a 600 pound (or whatever) tiger with a smallish wall, claws, high power-to-weight ratio and one of the most fearsome reputations in the animal kingdom, I think you have the advantage (in a fight at least).

Re:Hmm

[Gospodin]

Actually, the guy 400 yards away with the high-powered rifle has the advantage. As was verified in this case.

Re:Hmm

[Chris Burke]

Quite tragic, as tigers are nearly extinct in the wild. Why does the myth of animals thirsting for human blood after killing a person continue to persist?

Because in the case of tigers, it is a very real danger? At least, a tiger who eats a human (whether the tiger killed the human or simply ran across a body) is liable to start to see humans as food, and a tiger will hunt and kill anything it sees as food.

This tiger didn't actually eat anyone... but it wasn't killed due to the fear of it being a future man-eater, it was killed because it was in the process of mauling two people after having killed one already, and when the police distracted it the tiger ran at them. Ideally they could have used tranquilizers, but this wasn't a planned recovery mission, it was an emergency response. It's hard for me to fault the police for doing their job of protecting people and themselves with the tools they had on hand when they showed up.

I agree though that this is exceedingly tragic. It's a disaster as far as I'm concerned. And the fools who mis-constructed (and mis-certified) the enclosure, and the retards who lacked the common sense to not taunt a large predator, directly contributed. Is there any hope for these animals in the face of simple, common, everyday human stupidity?

Re:Hmm

[Fred_A]

I wonder how many aquarium designs they went through before they finally made one that held its contents properly... Silly as it seems, there are several documented cases where octupus would leave their aquarium at night for a snack in the neighbouring basins, only to return before morning. Leaving only baffled keepers.
Until someone sets up a camera.
And then some thin mesh wire.

Don't assume that animals are dumb because they live in water :)

Re:Hmm

[osu-neko]

This is unfortunately true. An animal that has actually overcome its instincts of avoidance (often due to unfortunate necessity) and killed a human becomes much more likely to do it again. There are no animals that, in the wild, are naturally mankillers, but there have been many documented instances of certain individuals becoming mankillers. Whatever the circumstances were and how unfair they were that provoked the first attack, once an individual animal has killed a man successfully, it becomes much more likely to do it again and again. Sadly, it's usually some stupid man who's turned the animal into a mankiller, but the fact remains that the animal now is a mankiller, and needs to be dealt with accordingly. I don't mourn for the idiot who provokes and gets killed in the first place, but one must deal realistically with the animal to prevent future innocent victims.

Re:Hmm

[somersault]

I guess we all know what to pack next time we go to the zoo then.

"What's in that case sir?"

"Oh it's just my photography equipment. I have a very high long zoom lens for, uh .. shooting *cough* pictures of distant animals"

Re:Hmm

[carps]

We humans just assume our personal experiences apply to animals. Right? Guys?

Re:Hmm

[jadavis]

the guy 400 yards away

So a tiger is on the loose, and the police had time to set up a sniper? Where did you read that? I thought the police were much closer to the tiger.

Re:Hmm

[jadavis]

but one must deal realistically with the animal to prevent future innocent victims.

I think in this case it had more to do with immediate danger than any kind of calculated execution.

Re:Hmm

[EdwinBoyd]

Not to be a pedant but Polar Bears in their natural habitat will actively hunt humans.

Re:Hmm

[wateronsand]

"this tiger can jump over fifty feet! luckily, our boat is only 25 feet away from him." /jungle cruise massive

Re:Hmm

[Torvaun]

Was this thing supposed to have tigers in it? Maybe it was used for bears when it was designed and built, in which case it would have been fine. It's quite possible that zoo administration is the only responsible party (other than the dumbass who got himself killed).

Re:Hmm

[mdvandam]

Argentinian zoo has no enclosure, the people can enter to lions and tigers. 0 killed from 1976. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0v53IgUBvWs

Re:Hmm

[kionel]

I might be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that Crocodiles actively hunt man.

Re:Hmm

[Amorymeltzer]

That's actually one of my favorite quotes. It really annoys me when people get all aflutter when something like this happens. I LOVE zoos, but I'll be the first to admit it's not a natural environment for the largest cats out there. They've evolved for one purpose and that is to be efficient meat-eating machines. If a dog attacks people, then you may want to deal with it - it is constantly around others and has been bred to be docile. If a tiger gets out and causes some harm, there's no fault to the tiger! It's a surprise they don't kill more people! And, as someone once said, what greater incentive to not mess around with a caged animal do you need? There's already a tiger in there.

Re:Hmm

[corifornia2]

There is no tragedy here. This is pure and simple karma. That tiger takes shit all day long from a hundred sniveling little shits."Hey Tony, this cage is grrrrrreat!"

While zoos are great for "seeing animals in the wild" to the animals its a great way to be an emotional punching bag.
The moral of the story, don't fuck with tigers.

Re:Hmm

[Grishnakh]

That person had been taunting the tiger; the tiger wasn't just going after people randomly, it targeted specific people for a reason.

The cop should have let the tiger just do what it wanted, until they could find a tranquilizer gun so they could get it back to the cage. As the other guy said, there's 6.5 billion people on the planet, and very few tigers. Tigers are endangered animals. People in a zoo should realize that wild animals are dangerous, and if they get out, it's them versus the animal. Humans shouldn't get any special rights against the animals when they knowingly put themselves in that situation.

Re:Hmm

[Grishnakh]

I'm sorry, I disagree. If an animal in a zoo (or anywhere else for that matter) becomes a mankiller, that's a human's fault, not the animal's. The animal shouldn't die because of some asshole human. If it kills other people, that's just too bad; they're 6.5 billion of us. We can afford to lose a few.

The way to deal with this is through the legal system. Let the animal do what it will, but figure out who caused the animal to become a mankiller unnaturally. Make that person responsible, even if they're dead. Any more deaths can be blamed on that person, and he has to pay wrongful death settlements, or if he was killed by the animal, his family has to pay.

Besides, let's be realistic here. This animal is in a zoo. Animals in zoos are supposed to be locked up so they can't physically escape and get to humans. If an animal is a mankiller, just put it back in its cage!!! and don't let it get out! How hard is that? Apparently, too hard for the SF Zoo which is too stupid to build a wall tall enough for a tiger, but again that needs to be dealt with, harshly, through the legal system by making those responsible pay for the damage, including the zoo director who apparently holds much of the blame.

Re:Hmm

[Grishnakh]

This tiger didn't actually eat anyone... but it wasn't killed due to the fear of it being a future man-eater, it was killed because it was in the process of mauling two people after having killed one already,

So what? Those people taunted the tiger, which is why it went after them instead of random zoo-goers. They should have been allowed to be killed by the tiger. The police should have stayed out of it. After all, police usually stay out of other situations until the dust has settled. Their job is not to rescue or protect people; the Supreme Court has proven that in one of their cases. Their job is to investigate crimes and maintain public order, not to rescue specific individuals. Look what happened at Columbine, after all; the SWAT team showed up and stayed outside until it was all over, then went in to clean up the mess.

Re:Hmm

[Smidge204]

Just curious... what does that video have to do with... anything?

=Smidge=

Re:Hmm

[Chris Burke]

After all, police usually stay out of other situations until the dust has settled.

No, they usually don't if they arrive while the scene is on-going. If they arrive at an armed robbery, they don't just wait until the robber leaves, if they arrive at a fight in a park, they break up the fight. Columbine is just one case. The UT Tower Sniper was another, and they sure as hell didn't wait until "the dust settled" before responding.

The police would have had no way of knowing if the tiger was going to continue to attack people after it had taken out the ones who had taunted it. Should they have just waited to see if the tiger wanted to maim any innocent bystanders, and only after the tiger was done try to go after it?

I can't say I don't wish the tiger had finished off all three of them. But to expect the cops to just sit there and watch it happen is, frankly, retarded, SCOTUS decisions notwithstanding.

Re:Hmm

[OrangeTide]

Your myopic view of the world is impractical. Spreading the blame around won't make people feel safe to go to the zoo. If people don't bring all their little kiddies to the zoo, two things will happen. the kiddies won't see these important animals and will likely not empathize with causes to protect them. And the zoos won't have money to continue operating and will be shut down.

No point in keeping a tiger in a little cage, because that's no way to live. You kill the tiger to avoid a repeat of the incident which we know from history is extremely likely to happen after the first time. It's not meant to punish the tiger, it's just the only option left.

Only an idiot thinks it's the tiger's "fault", although I admit there are plenty of idiots out there. An animal cannot take responsibility for its actions in our society. We cannot hold animals to the same standards that we hold sentient humans.

The tiger is a victim. But out of respect for the family's loss their son is also a victim. The message that is being sent to Zoos is this: we want humane and open areas for the animals to live in, but we don't want them to escape. I feel that these are conflicting ideals, and we have to strike a compromise between them, which is not easy to do.

To put things in perspective that same day the local news reported that a person was shot and 2 people were stabbed in the Bay Area. They didn't report traffic fatalities but those are also common too. As far as I'm concerned the tiger escape was a freak accident, and does not really merit public review.

Re:Hmm

[Wog]

Actually, in this case it was SF police officers with .40 sidearms. I imagine that they were able to win only because there were so many rounds expended, as handgun rounds are hardly adequate for this sort of animal.

In any case, most folks believe that human life is more important than animal life, so when a police officer arrives to find a "rare" tiger mauling a "common" human, you can't be surprised when he opts to kill kill the freaking cat. The suggestion that the lives of a few humans should be willfully sacrificed to preserve the life of an animal flies against our built-in desire to preserve our race, so don't expect to be popular when you make it.

Re:Hmm

[ChrisMaple]

The way to deal with this is through the legal system.

Will the tiger be able to pay for a lawyer, or will the court assign a public defender?

Re:Hmm

[CastrTroy]

But now the tiger is out of his cage, and the guy standing beside the idiot who was taunting the tiger is also in danger, along with probably a lot of other people who just happened to be at the zoo that day. What about all those people?

Re:Hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

The way I heard it, there is some chemical that humans produce in their bodies that is addictive. So that's where the idea that animals, once they have bitten (not even necessarily killed) a person and broken the skin, there after are more likely to bite again. Sort of the idea that once you have had a cigarette you are more likely to have another. It doesn't mean you necessarily *will*, but you are more likely to.

Re:Hmm

[Darinbob]

One confusion I have is how they measure the height of the wall and what the recommended height should be measured from. Ie, from bottom of moat to top of wall, or the level of the enclosure floor to the top of the wall?

Say you've got a wall that's too short, and you want to make it taller. If you dig into the moat then you can claim you've got a taller wall. But that makes no difference to the tiger jumping from the enclosure floor instead of the bottom of the moat.

Re:Hmm

[EvolutionsPeak]

People say this all the time, but I have never seen a link to real evidence of it (a study, not anecdotal). Does someone have one?

Re:Hmm

[Deadstick]

Whatever the circumstances were and how unfair they were that provoked the first attack

So, ummm, what provokes a crocodile? Being in the same body of water with him, perhaps? http://home.att.net/~crinaustin/Croc.htm

rj

Re:Hmm

[Nullav]

1) There are 6.5 billion people in the world. How many tigers are there?

And it's humanity's fault that tigers haven't evolved some sort of bulletproofing by now?

Re:Hmm

[fluffy99]

The math is making the bogus assumption that the tiger can jump at 26.7 mph, and that it jumped across the dry moat instead of jumping from the bottom. Speaking of which, was the original design supposed to have water in that moat?

Re:Hmm

[operagost]

I'll make sure you (or a loved one) are the next to be sacrificed to an animal who-- I assure you-- has absolutely no regard whatsoever for the value of your life. Please, for our sakes, go back to surfing PETA.org and munching tofu.

Re:Hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

That person had been taunting the tiger; the tiger wasn't just going after people randomly, it targeted specific people for a reason. The cop should have let the tiger just do what it wanted, until they could find a tranquilizer gun so they could get it back to the cage. The tiger had already mauled two others after killing one and was probably about to kill the others. Do you think after that it would have just sat down and licked itself or played with a ball of string while someone went and found a tranquilizer gun with the right dosage, shot it, and then waited patiently for a few minutes while the tranquilizer kicked in? Some reports state that the one guy who was killed was actually one that group that DIDN'T taunt the animal.

As the other guy said, there's 6.5 billion people on the planet, and very few tigers. Tigers are endangered animals. People in a zoo should realize that wild animals are dangerous, and if they get out, it's them versus the animal. Humans shouldn't get any special rights against the animals when they knowingly put themselves in that situation. Perhaps you would have been happy to repeat your view to this kid's grieving family? Perhaps you would have felt the same way if it was your child?

Don't tell me you, at 17, (or one of your friends) never did something silly without thinking it through. These guys could have been decent people besides this one bit of silliness (for that is all it was - they had not murdered anyone and thus it could be said they deserved to die). As for stupidity, I doubt they would have believed that the tiger would be able, or even sufficiently bothered enough, to jump over the fence and kill them.

Again people do stupid things every day, especially teenagers, it doesn't mean they deserve to die.

I appreciate (from the sounds of it) you don't support zoos (nor do I for simple entertainment purposes) but that doesn't justify any of your statements which are, to be frank, moronic.

Re:Hmm

[Enlightenment]

Not when you're facing an animal that typically wields high-powered rifles and mechanized transport, and hunts in packs.

Re:Hmm

[mnmn]

They do not need to 'design' anything.
They just need to watch this video: http://youtube.com/watch?v=gJ0hYMyYEtc

Re:Hmm

[Grishnakh]

Don't tell me you, at 17, (or one of your friends) never did something silly without thinking it through. These guys could have been decent people besides this one bit of silliness (for that is all it was - they had not murdered anyone and thus it could be said they deserved to die). As for stupidity, I doubt they would have believed that the tiger would be able, or even sufficiently bothered enough, to jump over the fence and kill them.

Spare me the sympathy for morons. I never did anything that dumb when I was young, and anyone who does deserves to die. Any idiot knows you don't taunt dangerous wild animals, even if there's a fence. In fact, it takes a rather sick and twisted individual to taunt a caged animal IMO, so I'm extra happy they got mauled for it.

Again people do stupid things every day, especially teenagers, it doesn't mean they deserve to die.

Yes, it does. We need less stupid people in the world, and less stupid actions. Maybe if people had to pay the price for their stupid actions, they'd think more carefully before committing them.

Perhaps you would have been happy to repeat your view to this kid's grieving family? Perhaps you would have felt the same way if it was your child?

I wouldn't raise a child to be that stupid or twisted. I'd be happy to repeat my view to this moron's stupid family, who probably had a big hand in making him the person he was. I know I was raised a lot better than to get drunk and high and then go taunt caged animals. Unfortunately, it seems that the popular American view is that we should raise our kids to be spoiled brats who don't think about others and only care about themselves, and that's exactly what we saw in this incident. Good riddance to the moron, and too bad the others didn't get killed before the cops got there.

Re:Hmm

[Gospodin]

I totally made it up, actually. Sorry. :) I'm sure you're right.

Re:Hmm

[Smidge204]

How is the claim bogus? The tiger can run 35mph. 55 degrees is a fairly steep angle but if the animal is strong enough to get that kind of speed in "only a few feet" then it doesn't seem that outrageous.

Why would it jump from the bottom of the moat? The whole point of the 33-foot distance is to account for the moat's width.

Why would it matter if the moat is filled with water? The math is based on the tiger jumping OVER it.

If I had to criticise anything, it's that diagram the article has. That's not a parabolic trajectory!
=Smidge=

Re:Hmm

[avandesande]

That's not true. Polar bears are known to stalk and kill humans.

Re:Hmm

[DavidShor]

I'm curious, do you support the death penalty against murderers?

Re:Hmm

[DavidShor]

Why didn't the zoo have anyone on staff with tranquilizers? I don't blame the cops, but it doesn't seem like too much to ask for a local precinct near a zoo to have special equipment.

Re:Hmm

[Wog]

Either you completely misread my statement, or you were replying to the parent of my post.

Re:Hmm

[Translation Error]

It doesn't matter. We all know it'd be a kangaroo court.

Re:Hmm

[access.name]

0 killed, maybe you are right, but I remember the case where some kid had his hand chewed off by a bear in Cuttini's zoo:

google translation of an article in "La nacion" newspaper, one million pesos indemnization for that kid:
http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.lanacion.com.ar%2FArchivo%2Fnota.asp%3Fnota_id%3D961913&langpair=es%7Cen&hl=es&ie=UTF8

Re:Hmm

[Single GNU Theory]

It doesn't matter. We all know it'd be a kangaroo court. Well done! +1 Funny, just in case anyone with real mod points misses your post.

Re:Hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

In Soviet Russia, you hunt polar bears?

Never mind.

Re:Hmm

[SCHecklerX]

which is sad, for the animal simply being, well, what it is. Caged it. Then killed it when it gave chase to an idiot waving things at it. If you have house cats, you *know* how they react to that, Anyone with any intelligence wouldn't do the same to a tiger.

Re:Hmm

[rohan972]

So what? Those people taunted the tiger, which is why it went after them instead of random zoo-goers. They should have been allowed to be killed by the tiger. The police should have stayed out of it.

And if someone taunts me, should the police stay out of it while I kill them?

Re:Hmm

[Dannkape]

I was in a Zoo in Kenya 20 years ago. For the lions there was only a small (2m) fence, and another one (to keep the humans on the track) a few meters away. For the leopards or whatever, the inner fence was over 5 meters high. For the tigers it was 10 meters high, and had a roof! (They did have some trees or something for them to climb in, so the 10 meters wasn't that extreme) (No idea if the "chicken wire" was actually strong enough to stop a tiger at full thrust, but that's a different story...)

Re:Hmm

[Gospodin]

Actually, the great-grand-parent. My post (about having a gun) was the parent of yours, and I have no idea how that could be construed as wishing the rare tiger had lived to kill a few more common humans. Did it sound like I was saying it was an unfair fight? Hey, in a perfect world, maybe they'd be able to use tranquilizers. But in any fight between a tiger and a person, I'm going to root for the person. I'm a little dumbfounded I have to write this at all.

Re:Hmm

[Grishnakh]

Actually, I'm a little torn on that one. On one hand, I think someone who's definitely, absolutely guilty of a heinous crime should be executed. I have no sympathy for mass murderers, serial killers, and the like. On the other hand, proving that someone is "definitely, absolutely guilty" of a crime isn't an easy task, and it seems rather rare with our judicial system as it is. Instead, we seem to have a lot of people in jail for crimes they didn't even commit, which is simply beyond horrible. We've seen over the past 10 years or so many people get released from jail based on new DNA evidence, some of these on death row.

So I'm not really sure on that one. If I was forced to make a decision, I'd probably say "no", or at least, "not now" because our judicial system doesn't seem to be good enough to make sure innocent people aren't getting executed. It just seems like trying people with juries of common people (or more accurately, people too stupid to be dismissed by the attorneys, since lawyers want jurors who are swayed by emotion rather than ones convinced by logic and concrete evidence) doesn't result in a very reliable system where the innocent go free and the guilty are punished almost all the time.

Re:Hmm

[Grishnakh]

If you're a wild animal, sure. But if you're human, no. Humans are subject to human laws. Wild animals are only subject to the law of the jungle. Animals shouldn't pay for humans' stupid mistakes.

Re:Hmm

[anthonys_junk]

Again people do stupid things every day, especially teenagers, it doesn't mean they deserve to die.

Doesn't mean they deserve to live either.

That fucking idiot got exactly what he deserved, it's a crying shame that the other two got away.

Most animals I know are better than most people I know.

Re:Hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think the police had exactly the preservation of the species in mind when they shoo the tiger. It was their own butt that were worried about.

Re:Hmm

[Wog]

My apologies. The first part of my post was a correction, that the animal was killed with handguns in an unplanned shooting rather than with a rifle "at 400 yards away". (Which is highly impractical in addition to untrue. Why did you present it as fact?)

The second part was a response to the "eh, what's a few humans?" attitude that was being expressed in other posts. It was not directed at you, and if you'd taken some time to think about it you could have simply asked for clarification instead of calling me a granola-munching hippie.

(Pertinent information: I'm a full-time church employee, carry a handgun, and eat more meat than I should. Hardly a tree-hugger. I do enjoy granola on occasion, however.)

Re:Hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

You can bring down a tiger with .40 handgun. You can bring down a tiger with a .22 if you hit it in the right spot. I've seen butchers put down 1000+ pound steers with a single .22 shot. I've also seen the job botched up with much larger hunting rifles (which wasn't very pretty, by the way).

The key is hitting it in that spot. The extra firepower is a safety margin.

Re:Hmm

[XHIIHIIHX]

The Life of Pi seems to think differently. Tigers like to be home. Maybe that's why he never went over the fence before?

Re:Hmm

[rohan972]

Wild animals are only subject to the law of the jungle.

The defenition of law of the jungle at which says anything goes, or Rudyard Kiplings version which says never kill man? Either standard would give the animal no expectation of protection from death. Common sense would dictate that if animals are protected by the law of man that their protection is subject to the restrictions of that law. Man or beast, if you are in the process of killing people, lethal force may be used against you. Even if they teased you.

Re:Hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it depends on how close the tiger is to you.

You can shoot them in the head but low energy projectiles are unlikely
to penetrate the skull (it is very thick) and the brain is a pretty
small target. You can shoot the spine to paralyze the tiger but it can
still kill you if close enough (yes they won't be jumping around but
they can still attack). You can shoot through the heart but, again, if
it is close enough it can still kill you before it dies.

It is fairly easy to kill a tiger (like most other living things) but it
is hard to kill it fast unless you have high energy weapons (and good
accuracy) or lots of lower energy weapons.

Re:Hmm

[tedrlord]

I think you either misread the previous post, or that was the most vicious agreement I've ever read. It looks to me that the grandparent's opinion is that no matter how rare the animal, most people are going to save people because we're, well, people.

Re:Hmm

[period3]

Look, Nature started the fight for survival, and now she wants to quit because she's losing? Well I say, hard cheese!

Re:Hmm

[The Steven]

Rule 1. Don't Piss Off The Big Cat.
Rule 2. The Big Cat Dosen't Care If You Have A Gun.
Rule 3. Do You Really Think You Can Pull The Trigger While You're Crapping In Your Pants?

Re:Hmm

[fluffy99]

Because running 35 mph, is a whole lot different than launching itself at a 55 degree angle at 35 mph. If the tiger could get any grip at all on the side of the wall, it would have needed less initial velocity jumping from the bottom of the moat. If you don't mind converting to metric, here's a calculator for you. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/c/a/2007/12/28/MNSKU5OFE.DTL&o=1

Re:Hmm

[fluffy99]

Oops. Here's the calculator http://id.mind.net/~zona/mstm/physics/mechanics/curvedMotion/projectileMotion/commonQuestionsCalculator/commonQuestionsCalculator.html

Re:Hmm

[pops55]

I don't know about that,these were some real losers that shouldn't have been missed from our gene pool.At least the tiger was good at her job and maybe this will make the next tiger bait think before he pisses off a 1/4 ton tiger

Re:Hmm

[vpaul]

You mean there was no single measuring tape in the whole zoo?

Re:Hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Again people do stupid things every day, especially teenagers, it doesn't mean they deserve to die.

Doesn't mean they deserve to live either.

How exactly would you qualify someone as "deserving to live"?

That fucking idiot got exactly what he deserved, it's a crying shame that the other two got away.

Most animals I know are better than most people I know.

It's a shame you are so blinded by your venomous view that you didn't even bother to read the article I linked to that showed that the kid who died was not even taunting the animals. Having said that, the other two who allegedly did "taunt" the beast (from witness testimony it appeared they were roaring at it - hardly a crime) I would suggest what they "deserved" is a banning from the zoo and whatever legal penalties apply for their drunken disorder and subsequent behaviour towards the police, not death by tiger-mauling.

While I have little sympathy for the injured two (they don't sound like very pleasant individuals) to say they deserved to die is just as moronic and nasty, indeed more so. By this logic, perhaps we should declare all taunting as punishable by execution at the hands of the taunted? That would reduce Slashdot readership somewhat!

(Hmmm... perhaps I was a little too hasty judging this idea...)

Re:Hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps we should institute state-sanctioned death penalty for taunters, to be carried out at the hands of the taunted using whatever tools are at their disposal? That's where your logic is leading after all.

A more sensible position is to say: what happened is *what is to be expected*, not *what is deserved*. The tiger did not deserve to die for doing what comes instinctively and naturally to it. The two injured males did deserve a punishment (such as a banning from the zoo and whatever the law prescribes regarding drunken behavior - in keeping with their actions); and the dead male did *not* deserve to die because he did not taunt the animal.

Re:Hmm

[fimbulvetr]

Maybe if they had figured out some way of deterring people from wanting something to come over that fence. Say, by putting an extremely efficient predator behind it.

Re:Hmm

[fimbulvetr]

Not always. The guy had only one advantage in this case - time. Had the tiger been pursuing him there would be no contest, those 400 yards would have been closed fast.

Re:Hmm

[Gospodin]

Which is highly impractical in addition to untrue. Why did you present it as fact?

I was trying to be funny. Given the mods and responses, clearly I failed.

...instead of calling me a granola-munching hippie.

Which I didn't do. Unless you're responding in this post to that other guy who did.

Re:Hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

"What about all those people?"

Serves them right. All of those people were at a zoo. They deliberately went to a place to gawk at innocent animals that are being confined against their will. I have no sympathy for people who visit such places, and resent my tax dollars being used to support these non-human-animal prisons. The human that was killed got what he deserved, even if he hadn't been taunting the tiger. Maybe if more humans got killed at zoos, they would stop supporting these despicable hellholes.

And for those of you who argue that zoos are good for preserving the genetic diversity of endangered species, that doesn't mean that they have to put their poor captives on display. What would be the reaction of most of these people if human prisons, cancer wards at hospitals, etc., were open to public tours where visitors could gawk at prisoners/patients, etc.?

Re:Hmm

[somersault]

While I have little sympathy for the injured two (they don't sound like very pleasant individuals) to say they deserved to die is just as moronic and nasty, indeed more so. By this logic, perhaps we should declare all taunting as punishable by execution at the hands of the taunted? That would reduce Slashdot readership somewhat! Indeed. I really want to invoke Godwin's law on these people who are saying these guys deserved to die.. plus since the animal wasn't in a proper enclosure I don't think they were being particularly stupid, just mean. It can't be a nice existence being gawked at by tourists and such, though I don't think that all zoos are 'hellholes' either.

Wow, talk about an unsafe zoo!

[ta bu shi da yu]

Surely someone would have calculated how far away a tiger needed to be from the public? Or doesn't anyone know how far a tiger can leap at SF zoo?

Re:Wow, talk about an unsafe zoo!

[framauro13]

Yeah, I believe the problem was the wall didn't meet the recommended specifications of 16 and 1/2 feet, which gave the tiger the clearance it needed.

The taunting was just the motivation it needed.

Re:Wow, talk about an unsafe zoo!

[eln]

Unfortunately, the zoo made their initial estimates for the enclosure based on the ballistic characteristics of a Southern Asian tiger carrying a coconut, not an unladen Siberian tiger, so their calculations were off slightly.

Re:Wow, talk about an unsafe zoo!

[Jamu]

They did, unfortunately the calculations were only accurate for spherical tigers leaping in a vacuum.

Re:Wow, talk about an unsafe zoo!

[pete-wilko]

Thanks, my keyboard needed that coffee shower ;)

Re:Wow, talk about an unsafe zoo!

[kybred]

spherical tigers leaping in a vacuum.

Damn you! I wanted to make that joke!

Damn me for not reading a little farther down before I did make that joke

Re:Wow, talk about an unsafe zoo!

[spaceyhackerlady]

Didn't you mean spherical isotropic tigers? Precision, please!

...laura

Never mind the physics

[ScentCone]

It's just nice to see that the zoo's kharma system was working. Unfortunately, someone meta-modded the tiger with a shotgun.

Re:Never mind the physics

[ta bu shi da yu]

For me, the only physics I would have been interested in if that tiger had escaped near me would have been one of ballistics. From the barrel of a shotgun.

Re:Never mind the physics

[Hognoxious]

A shotgun? Very unlikely to kill it, almost guaranteed to enrage it.

Re:Never mind the physics

[ta bu shi da yu]

Whatever, I wouldn't be shooting it. If it turned on the one doing the shooting, I'll be long gone. :P

Re:Never mind the physics

[ScentCone]

A shotgun? Very unlikely to kill it, almost guaranteed to enrage it.

Actually, I believe they DID kill it with a shotgun - just not loaded with birdshot. Slugs. You don't use a high powered rifle in a setting like that, or bet your life on a handgun. A 12-gauge with slugs will definitely kill something that sized, no problem.

Re:Never mind the physics

[techpawn]

Exactly, the only math I would do if I saw a tiger attacking is:

1. The distance from me to the tiger
2. The distance from me to my car
3. The distance from me and some guy I can beat in my race between me and my car

Re:Never mind the physics

[R2.0]

"A 12-gauge with slugs will definitely kill something that sized, no problem."

No, it is CAPABLE of killing an animal that sized - you still need to hit it in a vital area.

Re:Never mind the physics

[Rick Bentley]

Wait, a high powered rifle is EXACTLY what you want to use to bring down a big animal. A shotgun slug won't penetrate well at all (it's a subsonic round and has a high cross sectional area). A high powered rifle moves at over 3,000 fps (several times the speed of sound), has a small cross sectional area, and will penetrate deep into a fleshy mass.

Hunters in Africa (whom I think are total losers for shooting animals instead of just shooting pictures of animals) don't carry shotguns, with or without slugs. They carry high powered rifles. The term "elephant gun" refers to just such a gun.

Usually the only other gun a cop will have with him, besides his semi-auto pistol sidearm, would be a shot-gun. Shot-guns are nice in Urban settings as they don't over-penetrate walls and accidentally kill bystanders who might be standing a ways away or in another room/house/building. In any case, if they did use a shot gun to kill the Tiger it was only because they didn't have a high powered rifle with them.

...of course, I like to get the BFG and the quad-damage power up and get a good killing spree going but I doubt the cops had either of those in the zoo map...

Re:Never mind the physics

[ScentCone]

No, it is CAPABLE of killing an animal that sized - you still need to hit it in a vital area.

And your nitpicking is CAPABLE of ruining my +5 Informative, you insensitive clod!

You're right, of course. I've shot plenty of critters, for the purpose of eating them. I've never had to shoot something that would likely have eaten me. That sort of alarming situation would either make you a very good shot, or a very bad one. I think a repeating shotgun would be a VERY good idea in that situation. Most LEOs use pumps or gas-operated guns that with at least 5 rounds onboard. Vital areas or not, connect with at least a couple of those within 50 yards, and you'll slow down even a large animal enough to make sure that you DO have a good head or vitals shot to quickly finish the job. It would really suck to have to kill one of those big cats for such a dumbass reason, though. I bet the cops feel like crap about having to do it.

Re:Never mind the physics

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

I think you've contradicted your own argument. Given the reasons you give for police carrying shotguns in urban settings, and the characteristics of the high-powered rifle you describe, it's not hard to see why they might not want to use the rifle in the middle of a city zoo. What if they miss the target?

Re:Never mind the physics

[ScentCone]

But that's my point: they were in an urban setting with an unknown number of people likely to be hiding behind trashcans, in the kitchen behind some drywall, or well within ricochet range. For the same reason that you aren't allowed to use a high-powered rifle on a 200-pound whitetail deer in a semi-suburban setting, you don't want to use one at the SF zoo. Of COURSE a .30-06 is going to kill the animal more surely, more accurately, and more quickly. But it's a hell of a thing to be using in a setting like that... so, the shotgun's really the right too, all things considered.

Re:Never mind the physics

[brucifer]

But it was in San Francisco. I'm surprised they didn't just offer it medical marijuana and sing Kumbaya at the tiger until it learned its lesson and peacefully went back to its cage!

Re:Never mind the physics

[johnny0099]

Thanks for the laugh. I give you a 6.

Re:Never mind the physics

[Anonymous Coward]

Except you have to take the Taunting-Factor into account.

If the tiger jumped the fence specifically to get to you it doesn't matter if you're near an olympic sprinter or somebody in a wheelchair pulling a baby carriage full of bricks. That tiger will be coming after you.

Perhaps that's why initial estimates were off. Did anybody take into account that a tiger doesn't try to jump that fence if the guy doens't annoy it? There have been tigers in that cage for how long before this happened? Reminds of how after the 35W bridge collapse the big story nationwide (and here in Minnesota long after) was how suddenly every friggin' bridge in the country was a ticking timebomb of death and destruction.

I've been to zoos where the monkey cages are designed in such a way that trees hang down over where people walk. However I've never seen or heard of a monkey at the zoo trying to escape via that tree. However I would guess that if I start egging on said monkey, or find some other reason to grab it's attention...it may suddenly become very interested in that overhanging branch.

Re:Never mind the physics

[KillerBob]

Accuracy.

The reason a shotgun is effective in an urban setting is because it's a spray&pray weapon. You point it in the general direction of your target, and because it's close quarters, the large number of small slugs that it discharges have effective killing power. You'd need to score a very lucky hit to kill with just one shotgun pellet, but the shock from being hit by 30 at the same time can be fatal in and of itself, even if no single hit is fatal. But for it to be effective, you need to be close. They just aren't effective at a distance, because of the scatter pattern. You're unlikely to be able to safely get close enough to a raging tiger to be able to disable it with this type of weapon.

A supersonic round from a rifle has a few major advantages over a shotgun from an accuracy perspective... first, it's coming from a rifled barrel. It'll maintain its accuracy over a much greater distance. Second, killing power. The bulk of its killing power comes from the tremendous kinetic energy that the round carries, and from the fact that supersonic rounds tend to disintegrate on impact, dispersing all of the kinetic energy into its target. Ricochets do happen, but in my experience (Canadian military, primarily with 5.56 and 7.62 FMJ ball) they aren't a serious worry. Those types of rounds will usually shatter on impact no matter what they hit, and each individual fragment simply doesn't have enough kinetic energy to cause serious harm unless it hits a vital area. Truth be told, where ricochets are concerned in these types of weapons, your biggest worry is the chunk of burning phosphorous that flies off tracers when they hit something. Even then, the bullet itself still disintigrates on impact.

To sum up... a rifle is the way to kill a tiger. To have any real guarantee of stopping the animal with a shotgun, you'd have to be far too close for comfort. I wouldn't want to get within 30 feet of a raging tiger if my intent was to kill the animal. I'd rather be 300 feet away with a rifle in my hands. And police *do* use rifles. The RCMP training in Canada, for example, includes proficiency with the 9mm pistol, the shotgun, and the .22cal rifle. (and before you say that a .22 isn't enough, know that the standard military rifle, an M16 in the US and a C7A2 in Canada, shoots 5.56mm rounds, which is about .223 calibre) They're trained to know when a rifle is appropriate, and when a shotgun is appropriate. And in a situation like this one, a rifle is the appropriate weapon.

Re:Never mind the physics

[Guysmiley777]

Overpenetration + urban environment = bad.

Re:Never mind the physics

[Keeper Of Keys]

A shotgun? Very unlikely to kill it, almost guaranteed to enrage it. Are you sure? A single shot works every time in Tomb Raider. Now if it had been a pistol in each hand, I'd have to agree with you

Re:Never mind the physics

[TobyWong]

Plan ahead - always take a slow person with you when you go to the zoo.

Re:Never mind the physics

[djtack]

Wrong, police used .40 caliber handguns.

Re:Never mind the physics

[a-zarkon!]

You may be correct in most cases - except for the fact that we are talking about the San Francisco Zoo. Given that this is San Franciso, the only weapon that is appropriate is the .44 Magnum. The most powerful handgun on earth. "So Tiger, you have to ask yourself, 'do I feel lucky?' Well do you punk?"

Even Chuck Norris fears Dirty Harry.

Re:Never mind the physics

[Anonymous Coward]

The cops killed it with 40-caliber handguns, according to the reports.

Nice, huh?

Re:Never mind the physics

[ScentCone]

The reason a shotgun is effective in an urban setting is because it's a spray&pray weapon.

Unless you're using the shotgun as a slug gun. In which case it delivers enormous large-mammal-stopping power up to 100 yards, no problem. I have had many a venison dinner as proof of concept.

I can also shoot, off hand, no scope, with a 12GA 3" mag slug from most shotguns into a target smaller than a dinner plate at over 50 yards. The vitals on a tiger are larger than a dinner plate.

first, it's coming from a rifled barrel

My 12 gauge slug gun has a rifled barrel. I also shoot from smooth-bore shotguns, using rifled projectiles. These are readily available, and work very well. Again, fine dinners made from large mammals that dropped where they were standing when hit with a single shot from a shotgun slug is a fine proof of concept. I have, on the other hand, shot high-powered rifles at deer, and have seen the round pass right through the animal without giving up drop-dead energy. I hate that, since it means having to finish off the animal with another shot, often after trailing it as it suffers. That's to be avoided at all costs.

The cruising cops that need to respond to something like the tiger event are NOT the SWAT guys with .308s who know who to evaluate all of the down-range considerations, and have overwatch from other positions to make sure they're not going to hurt someone else. They use shotguns all time time, and for good reason. They carry slugs, buckshot, and other loads, and use them judiciously, based on what they're trying to damage, and how.

Re:Never mind the physics

[ScentCone]

Well, there you have it. My first take on the story when I heard it reported said shotguns. Doesn't matter. You use what you have, and a slug from a shotgun would have been better, if they'd had it handy. But, several rounds from a .40 is certainly going to do the job, too, especially because of the capacity.

Re:Never mind the physics

[sharkey]

A shotgun slug won't penetrate well at all (it's a subsonic round and has a high cross sectional area).

Since when is 1560 feet per second slower than the speed of sound?

Re:Never mind the physics

[king-manic]

To sum up... a rifle is the way to kill a tiger. To have any real guarantee of stopping the animal with a shotgun, you'd have to be far too close for comfort. I wouldn't want to get within 30 feet of a raging tiger if my intent was to kill the animal. I'd rather be 300 feet away with a rifle in my hands. And police *do* use rifles. The RCMP training in Canada, for example, includes proficiency with the 9mm pistol, the shotgun, and the .22cal rifle. (and before you say that a .22 isn't enough, know that the standard military rifle, an M16 in the US and a C7A2 in Canada, shoots 5.56mm rounds, which is about .223 calibre) They're trained to know when a rifle is appropriate, and when a shotgun is appropriate. And in a situation like this one, a rifle is the appropriate weapon. Umm.. what if your round goes cleanly through the animal? Depending on crowd conditions it may be more prudent to go with a lower caliber rifle or a shotgun... but in such a odd emergency situation any weapon you have on hand is liable to be better then letting 2 more people die.

Re:Never mind the physics

[Grishnakh]

but in such a odd emergency situation any weapon you have on hand is liable to be better then letting 2 more people die.

I disagree. Those people were taunting it, and deserved to die.

Re:Never mind the physics

[erlenic]

Knowing how well the media reports on any firearm related situation, I wouldn't be surprised if you heard it was a .40 cal Glock shotgun. It's even worse than when they report on technology.

Re:Never mind the physics

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh.. and here I thought he meant that it would kill tigers even if it was sitting in a closet on another planet.

Re:Never mind the physics

[corsec67]

Or, for the people who can actually defend themselves, that becomes 1 step:

1. Time to draw a CCW pistol.

Re:Never mind the physics

[techpawn]

Oddly enough in this case that might of meant something.

Where I am however, I don't think they allow you to take a CCW into the zoo...

Re:Never mind the physics

[chihowa]

I'm surprised that ScentCone brought this up and then seemed to forget it, but a shotgun loaded with slugs is essentially a rifle. You have a single, large, heavy "bullet" traveling relatively slowly (compared to a high power rifle). The range and accuracy are low compared to a rifle, but it allows police to carry a single long barreled weapon that can be used for multiple situations (even for "non lethal" uses). With the large "caliber" and high mass (and low velocity) of a 12 gauge slug, you would kill the tiger without having to worry about overpenetration. Though if you missed, bystanders would get hurt.

Re:Never mind the physics

[c6gunner]

And police *do* use rifles. The RCMP training in Canada, for example, includes proficiency with the 9mm pistol, the shotgun, and the .22cal rifle. (and before you say that a .22 isn't enough, know that the standard military rifle, an M16 in the US and a C7A2 in Canada, shoots 5.56mm rounds, which is about .223 calibre)

What the...

You were sounding really knowledgeable up to that point. I was nodding along, enjoying your post, and then *WHAM* you slam me with that stinker. Thanks a lot!

There are several massive differences between a .22 cal and 5.56mm NATO rounds. For example:

1) The largest available .22LR bullet weighs 60 grains, and most are much less - roughly 35 grains or so. The NATO 5.56 is a 62 grain bullet.
2) 5.56 mm rounds have about 3 times the powder as a .22LR round.
3) The muzzle velocity of a .22LR round is about 1,200 fps. 5.56mm rounds leave the muzzle at a speed of about 2,800 fps.


The end result of all these little differences? Your typical .22 round packs a punch of about 191 Joules, while a 5.56mm NATO round packs about 1,775 Joules. That's a HUGE difference.

Oh, and another thing:

The bulk of its killing power comes from the tremendous kinetic energy that the round carries, and from the fact that supersonic rounds tend to disintegrate on impact, dispersing all of the kinetic energy into its target.

The 5.56mm NATO round is designed specifically to cut through a victim cleanly and efficiently. It does not "disintegrate" on impact, and it certainly doesn't disperse all of it's energy into the target. It is in fact designed to wound, not kill, and that's one of the big complaints that the boys have been making over in the ghan. With the 5.56, you're unlikely to get a kill unless you hit a vital area, or you spray the bastard on full auto and get enough hits to put him down permanently. While this isn't a problem (and can actually be beneficial) when fighting conventional forces, it's a bit of a problem when you're shooting at suicidal maniacs who are hopped up on all sorts of drugs.

Re:Never mind the physics

[Libertarian001]

A .44 Magnum with Barnes bullets has more stopping power than a 12-gauge slug. It's the sidearm of choice on Admiralty Island in Alaska (the native word for the island translates to "large den of the big brown bears" because of the over 2000 grizzlies on the island). And with the speed of most wild animals, you need something you can wield when you find yourself in its grasp.

Re:Never mind the physics

[mcmaddog]

You may believe they DID kill it with a shotgun, however you are mistaken. Four officers tracked down the tiger and used their .40-caliber handguns.

Re:Never mind the physics

[Anonymous Coward]

"Exactly, the only math I would do if I saw a tiger attacking is:

      1. The distance from me to the tiger
      2. The distance from me to my car
      3. The distance from me and some guy I can beat in my race between me and my car"

If a tiger was threatening you would be far better off shouting "RUN AWAYYYY!" to get your nearest neighbors moving and freezing yourself (hey, every man for himself!). Once a big cat picks a target it usually zeros in on it to the exclusion of everything else, even if it passes a potentially easier target in the process. And a charging big cat moves unbelievably fast. You would be lucky to get turned around before it pounced on you.

I can't believe the zoo only had a twelve foot wall. I've read several books on hunting tigers which regularly describe tigers leaping over a 12 foot wall, grabbing a hapless goat or dog or human, and then leaping back over the wall to make its getaway with its prey. The height may have been exaggerated but...

Re:Never mind the physics

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe, getting in your car as an escape solution only works with lions. I'm not quite sure about tigers.

Re:Never mind the physics

[Profane MuthaFucka]

Oh goodness! An expert in shotguns AND tigers! Ladies are fainting everywhere!

Re:Never mind the physics

[ScentCone]

however you are mistaken

As I mentioned a little farther up in the thread, I was recalling the first report I heard about this (shortly after it happened). The reporter said "shotgun," and that's that. I'm perfectly happy being corrected on what they were carrying and used, but I'm still correct that a slug gun would be what you'd really want, given the choice.

Re:Never mind the physics

[Anonymous Coward]

While your doing the Math, I'm running for the closest door - which is likely to be a heck of a lot closer than the carpark out the front....

Re:Never mind the physics

[fzuccaro]

What is a Barnes bullet?

Re:Never mind the physics

[mcmaddog]

I didn't see the post that linked to the same article I did until I had hit submit so I apologize for the redundancy. However, I would argue an AR15/M4 or M1A/M14 would be better than a shotgun in the hands of a competent shooter like a policeman. The chance of a stray bullet would be minimized by their marksmanship and actually safer to nearby civilians at the range you would probably want to engage the tiger.

Re:Never mind the physics

[Hognoxious]

but a shotgun loaded with slugs is essentially a rifle.

It's more like a musket, except breach-loading.

So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[FuzzyDaddy]

The repeated mentioning of this guy taunting the animal irritates me, because it seems to imply it was his fault.

Sure, if I saw a guy taunting animals at the zoo I'd think he was a complete jerk. If it was really out of hand, I'd call security to arrest the guy.

But it's not something he deserved to die for.

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[ScentCone]

The repeated mentioning of this guy taunting the animal irritates me, because it seems to imply it was his fault.

Yeah, climbing over the fence to deliberately provoke a large predator and whatnot... totally the zoo's fault.

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[Anonymous Coward]

The repeated mentioning of this guy taunting the animal irritates me, because it seems to imply it was his fault.

Sure, if I saw a guy taunting animals at the zoo I'd think he was a complete jerk. If it was really out of hand, I'd call security to arrest the guy.

    But it's not something he deserved to die for.

It isn't as if this is a judicial sentence of death. What he deserved is irrelevant. You use that term when you are talking about justice not when you are talking about accidents with wildlife.

It is a good habit not to blame the victim of a crime. But no real crime occurred here. He was just the victim of an accident that he caused. This should be repeated in every story discussing this event as a warning to any other stupid individual who thinks taunting tigers is harmless.

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[lucifig]

I've been to the zoo dozens of times and have never been mauled by any animals. I'm not saying he deserved to die, but maybe he should have stuck to taunting the turtles.

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[Anonymous Coward]

Dumb enough to dangle your foot into the enclosure of a dangersous animal seems to be reason enough to die for me. It's a shame the animal had to die.

http://www.encyclopediadramatica.com/Carlos_Sousa_Jr

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[TomSawyer]

The repeated mentioning of this guy taunting the animal irritates me, because it seems to imply it was his fault.

I'm sure some misguided folks think he did deserve to die. However, the details of the taunting points to the possibility of the tiger's performance having been aided by adrenaline. The fellow wasn't just a helpless bystander when a tiger suddenly realized that she could escape her enclosure.

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[Anonymous Coward]

the main difference is that with out the taunt it would imply that the tiger would not have attacked

i dont think he deserved to die, but i dont think he deserved to walk away either, tigers a apex predictors....you dont taunt, or disrespect, or whatever something that can frickin maul you

he did, he got mauled...he died....cause and effect, im sorry, if you dont wanna get mauled consider cutting back on the total exposure time to tigers....that or dont dangle your legs into their cage like a freakin moron, hope this kid gets a darwin award

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[MBCook]

But it's a mitigating factor. The tiger didn't attack some random person, this guy was doing something to provoke the attack. That puts the attack in a different category. Both categories are bad in this case, but they are still different.

A well designed enclosure would have prevented this. The zoo is at fault. There is no question there.

However, the guy wasn't innocent. The tiger may not have attacked if he was behaving differently. There is a risk when you tease a 350lb killing machine. I see the fact he was doing that as important.

Your point is a bit like "sure he was kicking the dog, but that doesn't make it OK that the dog mauled him". Just because the result (mauling) was worse than the crime (kicking the dog) doesn't mean the crime is irrelevant.

Now teasing a tiger is not as bad as kicking a dog... the tiger isn't actually injured. The point is that the guy is not without blame.

If I had kids, I'd rather they heard this story with that fact, and would get the chance to learn the lesson "don't taunt things that can easily kill you, even if you think you're safe" than either never learn that lesson or learn it the hard way.

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[Vellmont]

I agree. Being a jerk for a few minutes to a tiger doesn't mean you should die.

I don't think it's mostly about "jerks deserve to die" though. I think most of the reason people like to keep repeating it is it gives them a comforting thought that the world is under their control, and safe. We're safe from tigers as long as WE don't taunt them. This guy was the cause of the problem, so there's no real need to worry about tigers escaping from cages (ignoring the other two people who were mauled of course).

Of course, the cage wasn't tall enough, and the Zoo is obviously responsible for this mans death. I'll ignore the whole argument if we should have Zoos for Tigers in the first place.

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[eln]

I wouldn't mess with the turtles if I were you. While the tiger's retribution may be swift and deadly, the turtle is content to bide his time, and has a much colder, darker heart. Once you get on a turtle's bad side, your life will never be the same. The turtle will make the rest of your long life a living hell. A turtle is cold and evil, and he never forgets.

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[antifoidulus]

I've been to the zoo dozens of times and have never been mauled by any animals.

You are not going to the right zoos then.....

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[apt142]

Hey, let's not forget the ninja skills he picked up from the park rat.

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[mebollocks]

http://www.nwf.org/nationalwildlife/article.cfm?issueID=117&articleID=1515
"There are more tigers in the United States--as many as 10,000--than in the wilds of Asia. Held in public zoos and private hands, these captive cats are so genetically degraded through rampant cross-breeding that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has designated them a virtually new, ninth subspecies: the "generic captive tiger."
I find it very hard to sympathise with any human being killed by a Tiger outside of it's natural territory. They will be extinct in our lifetime.

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[grahamd0]

He didn't deserve it, but asked for it.

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[foniksonik]

Nobody deserves to die but when they do things that are incredibly stupid like shooting at a tiger with a slingshot and climbing over the fence that holds the tiger in.... well, this stuff tends to happen.

People die all the time doing things they should not have been doing. Base jumping off tall buildings, walking on train tracks, driving while drunk, robbing banks... you can argue that all of these aren't enough to deserve death but who is at fault? The architects who designed the building, the city planners who put in the train line, the car manufacturers who designed the car, the legal system that outlawed stealing other people's money????

The guy put himself and others in danger by provoking a dangerous animal and providing it the opportunity to escape and run amok.... did you know the tiger actually climbed up the guy who was hanging over the fence in order to get out of the enclosure? It would have been much more difficult for it to escape if he hadn't been hanging over the fence (maybe impossible) providing a convenient ladder of sorts...

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[Alcoholic Synonymous]

Um, yes. He did. Just the same as anyone else, he knew how do behave. He taunted something that was captive and learned quick that he didn't have the balls to back up his mouth. If this would happen more often, natural selection instead of pansy apologism, the world would be a much better place.

He pissed off a tiger for crying out loud, and that's a mistake you should be able only make once.

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[Anonymous Coward]

The repeated mentioning of this guy taunting the animal irritates me, because it seems to imply it was his fault.

The ongoing sympathy for this guy irritates me, because it implies he was totally blameless.

The zoo's big cat enclosures were state of the art when they were designed, and have managed to contain the big cats without an incident like this for decades. Every time someone goes on about how tragic it is that some moron smoked grass, drank a lot of beer, and went to the edge of a freakin' tiger enclosure and taunted said tigers until one of them -finally- got pissed off enough to actually do something about it I want to smack them with a cluebat. The kid was not blameless. The zoo was not negligent. If people want to toss blame around, why not include anyone who saw these clowns and did nothing? How about the parents who never bothered to teach their children "do not tease things that can fucking EAT you."

You've already pretty much said you wouldn't do anything unless it "got completely out of hand." When, exactly, would that be? Before, or after, the tiger was ready to go Postal?

Sorry, Mate. It IS something he deserved to die for. Evolution in action. Fucking stupid enough to taunt a tiger == too stupid to breed.

If anyone deserved to live, it was the cat. There is the tragedy. Lose some idiot, and it's a tiny fraction of the population of an average urban high school. Tragic for his friends and family to be sure, but no great loss to Humanity as a whole. Lose ONE Siberian, and the species is that much closer to extinction.

How's that for perspective?

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[mpe]

The repeated mentioning of this guy taunting the animal irritates me, because it seems to imply it was his fault.

Maybe this would qualify him for a Darwin Award.

Sure, if I saw a guy taunting animals at the zoo I'd think he was a complete jerk. If it was really out of hand, I'd call security to arrest the guy.
But it's not something he deserved to die for.

Taunting any large animal, especially a predator, is a very silly thing to do. Serious injury or death can result even if the animal in question is not usually agressive towards humans.

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[smooth wombat]

he repeated mentioning of this guy taunting the animal irritates me, because it seems to imply it was his fault.

Let's see. On an average day at the zoo, there are several thousand people who visit this enclosure. During all the years this enclosure has been around and has had a tiger of some sort in it, not one person has ever been attacked, let alone killed.

Then one day, after drinking and some drug use, these asshats decide to stand on a fence around the enclosure, yell and taunt at a wild animal which is known to be able kill humans, possibly shoot it with a slingshot, and yet somehow, despite the actions of supposedly the smartest animal on the planet, it's not the guy's fault he got himself killed?

But it's not something he deserved to die for.

It's called being responsible for your actions. Put another way, survival of the fittest in all its glory.

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[Foolicious]

I believe the thing that bothers most people, why they seem to imply that the guy got what was coming to him, is that the animal was behind bars and the guys were torturing it verbally and possibly with a slingshot [begin slingshot debate now]. Would the guy have done the same thing to a large breed dog he saw walking down the street? Probably not. But some vodka and an animal enclosure turns the guys into George of the Jungle.

When push comes to shove do most people think the guy really deserved death? No. But we're far enough removed from it to think about it like something we'd watch on TV instead of something that might happen to someone we know.

Strange side note:

The following is from a major news outlet regarding what the police did when they arrived on the scene only to find the tiger loose:

They then "yelled at the animal to stop. They did not fire immediately. ... when the yelling was occurring the animal turned toward the officers" and that's when the officers shot the tiger, she said.

Nice work. I understand it's not something you deal with at the academy, but do you really think yelling "Stop" is going to have a major impact on the behavior of the tiger?

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[Anonymous Coward]

If the guy was taunting a tiger, he deserved whatever the tiger was able to do to him. That's how nature is supposed to work. There was no need to get security, the tiger was able to defend itself.
 
The part afterward, where the tiger lost its life because the zoo failed to contain it, is where the real injustice is. I hope to see severe punishment dished out to those at the zoo who's negligence led to the death of that animal. I'd also like to see people stop whining about the guy who died. Face facts, idiots are in plentiful supply while tigers are an endangered species. The world needs less drunken animal harassing idiots and more tigers to attack them.
 
Fear and respect for animals who can prey on you is a basic survival instinct that these guys lacked. Even all of the protections society has given them to shield them from Darwinism could not stop one of them from offing himself.

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're mixing emotion and fact here. No one "deserves" to die, that's an emotional stance. Taunting a tiger, an animal locked in a tiny cage for all its life, results in death. That is a fact. Leave the tigers alone, better yet, leave them in their natural habitat, and let nature sort out who should die when taunting an animal with 1)denser and stronger muscle fiber, 2)is larger than you.
Drunk kids should die more often, IMO. Either from tigers or BMW M5s. Keeps the gene pool cleaner.

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[darkwhite]

The repeated attempts to shift the blame away from the taunter irritate me, because it seems to imply it was anyone else but the guy's fault.

The zoo designed the enclosure to contain animals who are not enraged. A lapse of judgment, but not sufficient to implicate them in the guy's death.

The guy caused the death of not just himself but one of about 1000 individuals of a critically endangered species that we have a duty to protect. I submit that he fully deserved the result of his actions.

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[Anonymous Coward]

They climbed over one fence to get to the tiger. Perhaps the zoo should have something more convincing then a sign to prevent people from climbing over once fence and taunting the animals. They could put something inside to discourage them. Like a really dangerous animal!

But seriously... does a kid who likes to kick the feet of ladders people are using deserve to die? Of course not. But if one falls on him and kills him we call him a dumbass and point out that he kicked it onto himself. This tiger didn't decide one day that it wanted human for breakfast leap over the fence and go hunting... it was well fed and its cage had passed a safety inspection (though not with the "recommended height," it did have the "minimum height" it seems) and then several kids passed by several of the safety mechanisms and started attacking the tiger (slingshot). The kids are dumbasses and if they didn't deserve to die that's because *nobody* "deserves" to die - they did bring it on themselves, though.

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[mpe]

A well designed enclosure would have prevented this. The zoo is at fault. There is no question there.

What kind of enclosure would you actually need to keep an enranged and adrenaline fueled tiger in though.

However, the guy wasn't innocent. The tiger may not have attacked if he was behaving differently. There is a risk when you tease a 350lb killing machine. I see the fact he was doing that as important.

The way all mammals respond to threats is known as "flight or flight". Predators are likely to tend towards the former. There are few things an adult tiger will run from.

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm glad you don't have kids. The teaching point here should just be "don't taunt things" (or people). It is irrelevant to the ethical discussion that some things can (and will) fight back and others won't. For the younger kids that tend to lack the ability to analyze something ethically, yes - telling them something bad will happen is certainly a way to help produce the desired behavior. However these kids were about 17, right? Old enough to be taught and understand that taunting anything or anyone is wrong. Then again, they had apparently been drinking too - so the parents goofed that one up too.

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[aproposofwhat]

Perhaps they should make reading Albert and the Lion compulsory in SF schools?

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[dkleinsc]

So obviously we should have the zoo put up a sign that says "PLEASE DO NOT FEED THE TIGER".

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[Anonymous Coward]

But it's not something he deserved to die for.

Nature handles the weak, the sick, and the stupid. The guy got exactly the outcome he deserved. The tiger, on the other hand, was the unwitting victim of an idiot, make that a jackass.

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[ssssmashing]

Tiger says, "NOM NOM IM IN UR ZU EATN UR PATRINS" Obviously Tigers are not created in God's image as man is so there is no equivalence to a loss of human life, but the loss of the tiger is tragic too.

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure I agree; I think if people were always killed for being a jerk then we wouldn't have any jerks around. It would be a hell of an inducement to civil behavior. Seeing as how civil behavior is extremely lacking these days - maybe we should have "death to jerks"...

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[Damocles the Elder]

For one, they didn't climb over the fence, they were standing on top of the fence. Two, the fence was 3' high-- the kind you have to prevent 3 year olds from falling into the moat, not to prevent the tiger from getting out.

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[MartyBorg]

I submit that the zoo has a duty to have enclosures that are secure, no matter _how_ pissed off an animal gets.

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[19thNervousBreakdown]

Yes it is. Fuck that sick little shit, he absolutely deserved to die. Just ask yourself what kind of horrible mind it takes to enjoy teasing an animal that we've already put in a cage. Just how would you feel if somebody stuck you in a jail cell for your whole life, for no reason at all as far as you know, and then started flinging shit at you? Oh, and don't forget, you're 350-pounds of concentrated kinetic death.

I for one am glad that that fuckhead's cruelty is gone. The absolute foolishness and lack of respect that are also gone is just icing. Provided they weren't participating, the true tragedy is the two others that got mauled because of that dumb shit kid and the foolish zoo, and of course the tiger that had to be killed.

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[Damocles the Elder]

It isn't as if this is a judicial sentence of death. What he deserved is irrelevant. You use that term when you are talking about justice not when you are talking about accidents with wildlife.

Grantecd, but I think it's directed more at the people who say "You taunt a tiger, you deserve to get mauled."

Personally, I agree, yes this dude was stupid. However, the zoo is very much at fault here-- while I don't know the extent of the taunting that was going on, if a tiger can get enraged enough to jump the fence for three guys, what happens if it's a rambunctious field trip full of 6 year olds? Do taunting children "deserve" to be mauled too? And more importantly (since I don't care about a bunch of 6 year olds, but think-of-the-children is always a great argument point), do the rest of this zoo's "safety" measures come up to code, or are they lacking elsewhere? Are we going to be getting news that a shark rammed it's way through an aquarium window when someone starting humming the Jaws theme and tapping on the glass?

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[Wylfing]

it's not something he deserved to die for

I don't know about that. That's a very late post-modern (I might even say emasculated) way of looking at it. 1000 years ago, hell even 100 years ago, that kind of jackassery would definitely get you killed in a real hurry, and probably a number of other people as well. Getting roasted and shooting tigers with slingshots recklessly endangers himself and others, and those are not qualities you want in your village. I would bet virtually everyone would have shrugged and said "Glad he didn't take anyone with him when he went."

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[rbphilip]

Assuming you mean "what difference does it make", it makes quite a lot of difference. Now somebody stupid enough to taunt an animal that can eat him won't reproduce. It's called "evolution in action". I just wish they hadn't killed the tiger. It didn't do anything wrong.

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[Grimorous]

Here's proof. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwQ4hDsP_jg

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[sigzero]

If you put your head in the lions mouth please expect it to bite your head off. If you enrage a tiger please expect it to come after you. Totally the guys fault he is dead.

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[bkr1_2k]

Yeah because drinking underage obviously implies your parents didn't do their job. Whatever. I agree, they should know better than taunting anyone or anything but don't try to make it like their parents were awful parents because the kids were drinking.

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not sure about you.

My cat can easily jump seven feet straight up. This enclosure was 12ft high and ~30ft moat, scaled down 3.5high tiger to a 10inch cat.

~3ft high wall ~7ft moat. I'm guessing my cat would laugh at that setup.
If I saw this enclosure, I might not tease the tiger. oh wait.. this was 350lb tiger? what the hell was the fool thinking. Its a shame no doubt about it. Hoping others will use this as a reason not to taunt things that can eat you.

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[Zenaku]

What kind of enclosure would you actually need to keep an enranged and adrenaline fueled tiger in though.

One that is several feet taller than this one was would have done it. Adrenaline isn't magic, and its performance boost is finite. It obeys the laws of physics like everything else.

The fact that the tiger was enraged doesn't mean that no cage could have held her. The sort of unlimited rage bonus your question seems to imply only comes into play if the tiger has been exposed to gamma rays. ;)

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[jythie]

Heh.

I actually agree that there is no equivalence, but I would put the tiger at the higher value.

Humans are dirt cheap to produce, we have more then we know what to do with already and could easily survive a 90% population drop.
Tigers are pretty rare and are relatively close to a 'point of no return' population drop.

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[jythie]

Ahm, because in _PART_ it was his fault?

This is the type of situation the darwin awards were developed for. Doing something stupid and dangerous will occasionally get you killed. Yes it is tragic and things could have been done to prevent the situation, but ultmiatly the guy and his friend's poor behavior led to the actual events. Crow, if the other two had not been drinking the zoo staff might have actually believed their drunk panicked ramblings and they wouldn't have gotten mauled... but again, they made some stupid decisions and it cost them.

Deserved to die? No. But does death change the fact he had a hand in his own fate here? No again.

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[Anpheus]

Turtles never forget. Turtles never forgive. Expect them.

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[nobodyman]

Yes it is. Fuck that sick little shit, he absolutely deserved to die. Just ask yourself what kind of horrible mind it takes to enjoy teasing an animal that we've already put in a cage.

As opposed to the deranged mind that feels that the adequate punishment for verbally taunting an animal should be the death penalty?. The irony is that this kid's callousness is dwarfed by your own.

No, he did not deserve to die. This was an accident waiting to happen, and it's unfortunate that the take away message people have is "Welp, I guess you shouldn't yell at deadly animals" when it should be "Jesus, that zoo endangered all of its patrons by making the wall too low".

We already know that the zoo was cutting corners. We already know that this isn't the first time that this tiger mauled somebody, thus lowering it's fear of humans. What if the zoo accidentally skipped one of the tigers feedings? Would the next person to get mailed be at fault for being too slow?

No, there are no factors that mitigate the zoo's fault in this. Under no circumstances should a tiger be able to jump out of its cage. I'm surprised that I even have to explain this to people.

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, if you look at it a different way, it's useful information. It gives you a more complete picture of how big a risk it would be to go to that zoo. Is the zoo safe? Well, it's a lot safer for people who behave themselves.

Yeah, the story still makes me kind of nervous. But if the tiger had jumped a guy because he was strolling by with a corn dog in his hand, I'm taking the kids to the aquarium thank you very much.

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[Hatta]

I dunno, if you stick your tongue in an electrical outlet, you deserve to get shocked. If you walk across a highway blindfolded, you deserve to get hit. If you taunt a tiger, you deserve to get mauled. If he didn't want to get mauled to death, he could have easily left the tiger alone.

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[Anonymous Coward]

The repeated mentioning of this guy taunting the animal irritates me, because it seems to imply it was his fault ... But it's not something he deserved to die for.

Sure it is. Nobody is immortal so, in effect, everybody deserves death at some point. This kid chose to initiate behavior that would most certainly would result in his death in a natural environment. Due to poor design, nature prevailed over the artificial environment and his life terminated prematurely. In effect, he did deserve to die for his actions. (Besides, what use does society have for individuals who enjoy getting high and drunk so they can taunt captive animals?)

Oddly appropriate CAPTCHA: "drunken"

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[Mister Whirly]

If you are stupid enough to not realize that climbing over the 3' fence to get closer than you are supposed to to the tiger, and then taunting the tiger, while intoxicated, is a bad idea, then I hope something takes your DNA out of the gene pool. Darwinism at work here people! I mean honestly, trying to make a tiger made is NEVER a good idea. Guess they never heard the expression about not pulling on the tiger's tail.

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[Mister Whirly]

"trying to make a tiger mad" not made. my bad.

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[Anonymous Coward]

"But it's not something he deserved to die for."

But it's something the tiger DID die because of.

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[19thNervousBreakdown]

He wasn't put to death by us, he was put to death by the already imprisoned creature that he was torturing. Humans (are supposed to) have a higher moral standard. They're supposed to be able to judge that an action or reaction is out of line. A tiger cannot be expected to make this distinction. He also wasn't just verbally taunting, they were using a slingshot on it. Big difference.

I'm not bothered by callousness, nor was I implying that I was, so there's no irony. I'm bothered by cruelty, which is what he displayed. I feel schadenfrauede when an idiot gets what's coming to them.

There's no need to patronize, I realize that a tiger shouldn't be able to jump out of its cage, and I agree, 100% of the blame for this is on the zoo's shoulders. It doesn't matter whose fault it was though, the kid deserved what he got.

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[ChromaticDragon]

You're logic needs a bit of help.

Here A --> B. Tiger Taunting --> Mauling by Tiger

Not A does not necessarily mean Not B.

People aren't saying "ahhhh my life is safe, I don't taunt tigers". They're saying: "if you DO taunt tigers, bad things are likely to happen". There's a clear difference between the two.

I'd recommend an interesting book: Life of Pi by Yann Martel. It goes into a good amount of detail about zoo related issues and especially tigers. We're not safe from tigers at all. Yes, there IS a certain level of risk going to a zoo.

I take issue with your thought that these people constantly repeating the fact of the taunting are doing such out of some idea of a sense of security or a world under control. Indeed, I see the reverse. It appears to me that you may be arguing for a safe world where folk should be safe to taunt tigers.

As several others have mentioned, this isn't an issue of sentencing (or wishing) the young chap to death for stupidity. It's a horrific reminder WHY such stuff is stupid. It's not stupid behavior because it's boorish and disturbs our sense of peace. It's stupid behavior because it could quite easily to lead to a premature death. And to GP's post, this ought to show you that the proper response may not be so much to call security to get the man arrested as much as to hastily move away.

Yes the zoo (and related agencies) are clearly at fault for the wall height. Punitive damages against the zoo should be stark to shock the cobwebs out of the eyes and brains of zoos and agencies to address things like this properly.

But in order to be able to proceed through life in a prudent manner, it seems important to have a reasonable understanding of dangers. Many animals are incredibly dangerous for one reason or another. This is not something people should take lightly. Discussing this particular occurance devoid of the context (the taunting) would seem to be enormously unwise. It could lead to all sorts of erroneous conclusions.

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[apt142]

Actually, I would argue that teasing this tiger was, in the end, worse than merely teasing an animal. His actions did result in it's death; A destruction of an endangered species.

Everything else, I can agree with you on.

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[FuzzyDaddy]

But it's a mitigating factor.

I guess it boils down to a question of what is being mitigated. We agree that the zoo was at fault. Also, everyone probably agrees that the tiger was blameless, and exhibiting normal, expected tiger behavior.

What people feels it mitigates is not any sort of legal liability. What it mitigates is our own personal sense of injustice in the situation. There's a certain wink and nod "aren't you glad this asshole died?". There are plenty of examples in this thread of people saying just that without the wink and the nod, and the constant reference to taunting certainly encourages that.

The question we should be asking ourselves is whether we are happy that someone who taunted a tiger died. If we are, we ought be be asking why.

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[Pollardito]

despite the actions of supposedly the smartest animal on the planet i was right there with you until you brought dolphins into it, leave dolphins alone!

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[hypnagogue]

But it's not something he deserved to die for.

Pointing an unloaded gun at a police officer is technically "assault with a deadly weapon on a peace officer", a crime that usually carries a less than 20 year sentence, and certainly doesn't carry the death penalty. Nevertheless, you are unlikely to be convicted or even see trial, as the police officer will shoot you Dead Right There.

This isn't about justice, crime or punishment, it's about doing something incredibly stupid that will get you killed.

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[MadnessASAP]

It did have an impact on the tigers behaviour, it made it aware of some new tasty targets for it to chew on. Unfortunately for the tiger these targets did something that it wasn't quite expecting.

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[BigJClark]

Agreed. Society has fattened us all up to the point where we rely on laws to keep us safe. This is a case where some dumb individual was punished for being dumb; There isn't any sort of clause in nature that states the punishment should fit the crime.

Piss tiger off, get eaten. Done and done.

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[7-Vodka]

Are you kidding me?

Depending on the taunting that went on, this guy's age and whether he had children already he could be in line for a really great darwin award!

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[protolith]

Deserves got nothing to do with it,

He made some assumptions that happen to be incorrect. He assumed that the Tiger couldn't get out of it's cage, he was wrong. As soon as he began taunting the tiger with a slingshot he became complicit in his own death.

He also must have missed the episode of Dirty Jobs where they were feeding the tigers at the SF zoo, and it was quoted by the zookeeper,
"The tigers we have here are the most aggressive in the world."

That information would have been useful prior to the taunting of said tiger.

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[kylben]

do you really think yelling "Stop" is going to have a major impact on the behavior of the tiger? Empirical evidence suggests that it did:

when the yelling was occurring the animal turned toward the officers Another way to phrase that was that the tiger turned away from everybody else who didn't have guns. Sounds like a perfectly conceived and executed plan to me.

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[protolith]

"We agree that the zoo was at fault."

I don't, the enclosure was designed in the 1930's, it may have been the most advanced of it's time, the design turns out to be flawed (by current standards)That shouldn't automatically make the zoo at fault. If the zoo was ignorant of the enclosures shortcomings, then they are not at fault, If they knew there was a high likelihood that a tiger would escape and kill someone, then they should be held accountable.

"The question we should be asking ourselves is whether we are happy that someone who taunted a tiger died. If we are, we ought be asking why."

I'm not saying I'm happy the guy died after taunting a tiger, I'm indifferent about his death. He should be considered responsible for his actions that led to his being mauled by a tiger.

I think it's unfortunate that the world had to loose a tiger to get rid of an asshole.

Oxygen and Assholes, two things the world will never run out of.

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Deserves got nothing to do with it" --William Munny

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[stretch0611]

Taunting tigers at the Zoo. Well of course he deserved to die.

He gives all of us something to email each other with the title of "Darwin Award Winners"

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[ceoyoyo]

"Evolution in action."

-- the citizens of Todos Santos

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[Like2Byte]

Ooh, man, I was gonna MOD today - instead, let's burn karma.

.... The zoo is at fault. ...

The zoo is *not* "at fault". This enclosure existed for many years with the current species of tiger enclosed in it and no one was attacked from the observation deck.

In walks this ass-hat and he begins to taugnt the tigers. You know what's really at fault? Nature. Nature is at fault. And as I see it, *Nature* isn't even at fault. Nature did it's job by thinning the gene pool before this shithead could breed.

Certainly the zoo will have to improve all if its animal enclosures to ensure that *innocent* people arn't killed in the future by the actions of people dumb enough to tempt an attack by another dangerous animal.

Today's Life-lesson is: Don't live to be an example of what *not* to do.

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[Tanuki64]

Designed in 1930? This means almost 80 years no problems. I know from another zoo that they are well aware that the tigers could jump over the barriers, they just don't do it: http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=438748&cid=22261598

Even now I think the enclosure was absolutely sufficient. I am not a friend of nanny state attitudes. An enclosure where by an asshole aggravated tiger can escape from is unacceptable? Forbid cars, power sockets or even knifes. Improperly used they can kill. And actually do. Much more often then taunted tigers in zoos world wide.

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[vodevil]

The zoo definitely needs to be held accountable for the loss of human life. However, since the man was found to be taunting the animal, and the police ended up shooting it, his family should be responsible for the loss of the animal's life. Tigers are becoming increasingly rare. I can't say the same about jackasses.

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[ChrisLeif]

How does the saying go? Don't throw stones at an armed man. Don't stand next the the guy throwing stones at an armed man.

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe this practice is outlined in the Darwin Awards...

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[King Gabey]

Well, actually initial eyewitness reports said that his friends were doing most of the taunting, and that he turned to a mother there and apologized for their behavior. It's later articles that I read which didn't use any references (just something vague like "the zoo alleges that he and his friends were taunting the tiger") and now it's been simplified further to "... a Siberian Tiger he had allegedly been taunting at San Francisco zoo at the end of last year." It's interesting to see the facts devolve by convenience of telling.

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[Dandano]

Actually, there has been no evidence that anyone was taunting the tiger. The Zoo stated that they believed that the tiger *may* have been taunted, but there has been no evidence or conclusive statements made to support that position. More likely, the zoo put this idea forward to diminish the public's perception of the Zoo's negligence in this man's death. I would like to see a link to prove me wrong.

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[Babu 'God' Hoover]

And they've got some wicked moves.

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[Anonymous Coward]

...imply it was his fault...not something he deserved to die for...

You're mixing up two separate ideas. First, there is the idea of cause and effect: outcomes are determined by actions. Second, there is the idea of criminal justice: that society has created a system of rewards and penalties in order to influence the behavior of individual members.

While an individual should take both of these ideas into account when deciding a course of action, these two ideas are fundamentally distinct. For example, failing to look both ways before crossing the street can get you killed but society has not passed a law imposing the death penalty for failing to look both ways before crossing the street.

Of course, it can all get rather subtle. Most societies are structured so that if you sit around doing nothing all day then you end up being very poor. There's no specific law against sitting around and doing nothing all day but society doesn't yet have the technology (e.g. robots) to mitigate the cause and effect that if no one does any work then the society will lack the resources to provide it's members with a decent standard of living.

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[morari]

The guy probably deserved to die a lot more than the tiger did when all of those trigger happy cops came onto the scene. And if you really think otherwise, I suggest you go watch Planet of the Apes, maybe the reversed perspective will work better for you.

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[nobodyman]

He also wasn't just verbally taunting, they were using a slingshot on it. Big difference.

This is simply not true. This is a rumor that is being flung around various websites, and in fact has been refuted by police investigators. What is true, however, is that after the tiger escaped, the nearby cafe locked it's doors and the staff would not let one of the surviving brothers in while the tiger rampaged outside. In fact, the staff initially thought that the kids were joking, and were late in reacting. Finally, the zoo prevented firefighters and police officers from entering the zoo for up to six minutes before letting them in. These actions seem far more wreckless, yet nobody seems to be repeating these facts. Just the lie about the slingshot.

It doesn't matter whose fault it was though, the kid deserved what he got.

As I wrote in another thread: What if this was not an 18-year old male yelling at the tiger, but a 10 year old girl waving at the tiger and screaming "Hello tiger!". How does the tiger know which is cruelty and which is playful? When we bare our teeth, we are usually smiling but to most animals that is a sign of aggression. As you said in your last post, tigers can't be expected to make the distinction. So does the girl deserve to be killed to?

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[19thNervousBreakdown]

That story is nearly the opposite of everything I heard, short of the wall being too low. I'm not saying I disbelieve it, but I'm not going to just switch my opinion instantly.

It also doesn't change much. The slingshot thing, yes, that makes something of a difference, but only in degree.

If it was a 10-year-old girl screaming "Hi tiger!" then no, she wouldn't have deserved to die, regardless of the tiger's inability to distinguish the two. The intent is what counts, and from all accounts, even if the zoo situation was as screwed up as the ABC article states, that kid's intent was nothing but malicious. The girl would be a tragedy, this is justice.

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[roguetrick]

Its not about the Zoo's fault, its about the guy not deserving to die. Maybe experience something he could recover from, but die?

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[mattOzan]

"If I had kids, I'd rather they heard this story with that fact, and would get the chance to learn the lesson "don't taunt things that can easily kill you, even if you think you're safe""

Sounds like an argument against filesharing copyrighted material as well. The odds that you'll be one of the lucky people served by the RIAA is miniscule--you think you are safe. But in the taunting hides the risk of being eaten by their tiger team of lawyers.

"But that shouldn't be illegal," you protest. Perhaps. But a Siberian tiger shouldn't be able to jump over a retaining wall, either. Predation happens.

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[sdpuppy]

Well I suppose it's a lot like touring the engine room of the Enterprise.

You don't want to press any buttons you're not supposed to.

(LIke the big red "turn Warp Core Containment Off" button)

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[PitaBred]

If it teaches all the other 6 year olds to not be little shits, yes. People are sorely lacking the realization that they CANNOT control everything, they can only control their own actions, and need to be held responsible for their own actions sometimes.

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[PitaBred]

Ever seen an alligator snapping turtle? I wouldn't tease one of them...

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[deanlandolt]

The way all mammals respond to threats is known as "flight or flight". So is the true geek reflex?

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[Vellmont]

People aren't saying "ahhhh my life is safe, I don't taunt tigers". They're saying: "if you DO taunt tigers, bad things are likely to happen". There's a clear difference between the two.

I disagree. It's a rationalization going on. The tiger DID escape from the cage.. but the rationalization is "Oh.. it only escaped because the guy was taunting it". We don't really know that, nor do we know what other circumstances the tiger could escape.

Discussing this particular occurance devoid of the context (the taunting) would seem to be enormously unwise.

I understand the context, I just don't think it should be over-emphasized (which it seems to me it is). Tigers aren't supposed to be able to escape from cages in a Zoo. It doesn't matter if the guy was taunting it, holding meat in front of it, etc. That's just a cardinal rule. The problem here is that people are using some kind of moral or value judgment to diminish the massive safety failing that happened.

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[Grishnakh]

Its not about the Zoo's fault, its about the guy not deserving to die. Maybe experience something he could recover from, but die?

Yes, DIE. If you are stupid enough to taunt a large tiger, you deserve to die. It's that simple. Every other animal on earth is supposedly not as smart as a human, but they're all smart enough not to taunt large predators, because as small as their brains are, they know that it's a bad idea. So when a human does this, you think they deserve to live? Sorry, no. People that stupid have no business sharing space with the rest of us, or worse, reproducing and making similarly stupid kids. That level of stupidity is simply inexcusable.

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[Grishnakh]

The zoo is at fault ONLY for the death of the tiger, not the death of the human. The human is responsible for his own death, since he taunted the tiger.

Plus, there's a difference between a 6 year old and a teenager or adult, which this guy was. But even a 6 year old should have enough sense to not taunt a 350 pound tiger; if they don't, I won't mourn their death by tiger mauling.

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[Anonymous Coward]

We had a case like that in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. At the Blijdorp zoo a (crazy) woman had been taunting a silverback Gorilla Bokito. In her world they had an 'understanding'. She had repeatedly been warned about it by zookeepers. In short the Gorilla jumped a moat and climbed out of the enclosure atacking her (she survived as did the gorilla). I think here also both were at fault. A wild animal should not ever be allowed to escape its enclosure and the woman should have obeyed the zookeepers.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6670723.stm

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[Grishnakh]

The question we should be asking ourselves is whether we are happy that someone who taunted a tiger died. If we are, we ought be be asking why.

What's wrong with being happy about that? The guy was a moron and an asshole. To be any stupider than to taunt a tiger, you'd have to be declared mentally retarded. Seriously, you can't get much stupider than to taunt a 350-pound killing machine.

Would you feel bad for someone who swam around in shark-infested waters teasing great white sharks, and got eaten by one? Of course not (at least I hope not). When people do incredibly stupid things, it's not a tragedy when they die. People's deaths are tragedies when they did nothing wrong, and nothing to deserve that, like some person walking down a sidewalk when a piano falls on their head. But when people actively do stupid and reckless things which unsurprisingly result in their death, I don't see what's wrong in not only not feeling bad about it, but even laughing at it and saying they deserved it. That's what the entire Darwin Awards concept is based on, after all.

This is basic survival here. If you want to survive to old age, then you use your brain a little bit and don't do incredibly stupid things which cause you to get killed. Taunting tigers falls into this category. If you do, it's no big loss.

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[Chris Burke]

Please Do Not Feed The Tiger With Face

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[Henry V .009]

Think how far tigers have advanced in the last 80 years!

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[PitaBred]

No dude, it was the mice. Dolphins are #2, and humans are a distant #3. You need to read further ;)

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[Johnny5000]

But it's not something he deserved to die for.

I'd say according to the laws of nature, death is exactly what he deserves.
If you're too slow, weak, or stupid to avoid getting eaten by a predator, you deserve to die.
It applies to every other animal on earth. Why not humans, too?

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[greenbird]

I've been to the zoo dozens of times and have never been mauled by any animals.

And millions have walked by this very tiger pen and not died.

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[nobodyman]

That story is nearly the opposite of everything I heard

Stories don't carry as far when they aren't as salacious, regardless of the truth. People feel more comfortable accepting this kids death if they villify him. The cops *on the scene*, who searched the scene, searched the victim's person and their car, and interviewed witnesses are saying that there was no slingshots or rock throwing, yet you're choosing to believe rumors and speculation.

The girl would be a tragedy, this is justice.

Bullshit. The punishment should fit the crime. The just punishment for acting like an ass at a public zoo should not be a slow and tortuous death, or to watch your brother be slaughtered in front of you while people think that you're lying and refuse to help you. Have you even read the 9-1-1 transcripts of what happened? Nobody should have to die that way.

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[idlemind]

Who's fault would it be if the tiger killed someone else who just happened to be there?

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[19thNervousBreakdown]

This isn't punishment.

This is just what happened. A person didn't sit down and think, "hey, let's get a tiger to maul this kid." If I did that, I would be wrong in every way imaginable.

And the fact is, you're just as wrong as people blaming the brothers for everything. Sorry, but three 17-19-year-old kids down some vodka, smoke some herb, and drive their BMW to the zoo, and they're going to be well behaved? You act like you're certain they did nothing wrong. Well, in my experience, the kind of 17-year-olds that have access to liquor, pot and BMWs in the morning on a school day are almost never well-behaved. Stereotype? Yes. Doesn't mean it's wrong, and lacking better evidence, it's what I'm going with. I find it very hard to believe that the tiger jumped out of its cage and mauled these people unprovoked. The woman who got clawed by this tiger before was a fool. I won't even take food away from a dog with my bare hand, and she tried it on a tiger? In-fucking-sane. Yes, the zoo was mismanaged, but people are just too damn dumb to live.

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[Anonymous Coward]

"teasing a tiger is not as bad as kicking a dog... the tiger isn't actually injured. "

Point of information. They apparently threw sticks, pine cones, and rocks at the tiger.

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[kaze]

Actually that tiger did attack a zoo keeper about a year ago...

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[Tanuki64]

Normal thing. Tigers (and the other big cats) hate their keepers. Don't want to type all this again: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=438748&cid=22263954

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[vodevil]

Here you go: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22719922/ "One of the three victims of San Francisco Zoo tiger attack was intoxicated and admitted to yelling and waving at the animal while standing atop the railing of the big cat enclosure, police said in court documents filed Thursday." So even if the man who was killed wasn't taunting, one of the men he was with was. So maybe his family should be liable for the death.

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[frogzilla]

I agree completely. Have you ever looked down into the water before jumping off the dock into a beautiful northern lake? I have and once something was looking back. A very large reptilian something with a sharp beak, scaly shell and beady eyes. It swam away and I didn't swim that day.

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[nobodyman]

I only mention punishment because you were the one claiming it was justice that the kid got killed. Clearly it isn't.

You act like you're certain they did nothing wrong.

No, I think they did something very, very stupid. But I also feel like they should not have died, and did not deserve to. Why do people make every situation out to be mutually exclusive?

As for the female zookeeper, I haven't read enough about what her story was. I do know that the zoo was held liable and fined $10,000. And I think she's suing (or sued) the zoo. But I'll take your claim at face value.

Either way, I think we're more in agreement than it seems. We both think that the zoo was mismanaged. We both agree that the tiger was provoked. What I'm saying is that if a tiger *can* jump out of it's cage, it *will* jump out of it's cage, it's just a matter of time. If it wasn't these stupid kids, it would be some totally innocent bystander that inadvertantly does something that pisses the tiger off. Maybe the tiger just gets hungry or restless. Who knows. The point is that you shouldn't have to examine the psychological underpinnings of 350lb. siberian tiger to figure out how culpible the zoo is. Regardless of what made the tiger jump out of the cage, it jumped out of the cage, period. And that it was able to means that the people in charge should be nailed to the wall.

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[anthonys_junk]

That would be an unfortunate incident, but it seems that the tiger was goal driven.

The tragedy is that the other two got away.

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[couchslug]

"The repeated mentioning of this guy taunting the animal irritates me, because it seems to imply it was his fault."

They did "volunteer" for what happened. I don't mourn people who are that stupid. Too bad about the tiger, but he sorted those punks attitude problem quite nicely.

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[Foolicious]

Another way to phrase that was that the tiger turned away from everybody else who didn't have guns. Sounds like a perfectly conceived and executed plan to me. Holy literal nerd need for argument, Batman! You (and the other poster) missed the point. Why'd they yell "stop"? Why not "Here tiger, tiger"? If the plan was so perfectly executed (meaning to draw the tiger in to kill it), why even have the yelling in the first place? Why not just shoot it before it approaches you? I know, I know. You're not able to think outside the boundaries of pure logic to appreciate strange situations, much like a Vulcan. So I stand corrected. The next time I am called to the aid of someone being attacked by a tiger, I'll first yell for it to stop, wait for it to charge me and then shoot it.

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[ReflexOgy]

No matter how stupid the individual was who climbed the wall, death by tiger was not warranted. What if a 5-yr old managed to do the same thing? Would we condemn the parents, the child, the child's lack of good DNA? *gasp* It's not "reasonably" safe to take your kids to the zoo.

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[sornord]

The CRIME was the tauting of the dangers animal by a bunch of idiots.

I nominate these clowns for the Darwin Awards...

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[Anonymous Coward]

What if a 5-yr old managed to do the same thing? Would we condemn the parents Yes! We would.

(We = The people who actually give a shit about parental responsibility. I.e not you, apparently.)

Re:So he taunted... why difference does it make?

[kylben]

It make take you a little while to line up a clear shot. It's best if during that time, he's not eating people. If you can get him moving away from others, it's less likely a missed shot will take out one of the zoo patrons. And, as a bonus, if he's moving toward you, it's easier to take the shot than if he is moving away, or worse, laterally and erratically. Of course, that advantage may be entirely offset by an increase in the shaking of your hands.

Animals respond to tone, pitch, projection, and volume, not vocabulary. It's just human psychology that "Stop" will be yelled in a firmer and more attention-getting voice than "here, kitty". Try telling your dog "what a good puppy" in a firm, demanding voice. Or alternately, try telling him "I'm going to wring your fsking neck, you worthless bastard" in a cooing voice. It's possible, but doesn't come naturally.

It doesn't take logic, in this kind of case instinct is a good guide, and I'm sure the cops acted on instinct - well, except for the running for your life part. Logic just backs up the instinctual actions after the fact.

Lesson in international relationships...

[arivanov]

Never taunt someone call Tatyana or god forbid Katusha... If you value your life that is...

Re:Lesson in international relationships...

[GreenEggsAndSpam]

At least nobody seems to be wanting to annoy the free-roaming croc named Cthulhu....

(And yes, I know Cthulhu isn't a croc, but if you named a croc that.... REALLY, who would mess with it?)

The zoo should know stuff like this.

[Anonymous Coward]

After all, it's exactly the type of thing you should think about about when you design enclosures for dangerous animals. My family all seem to think that because this guy was taunting the tiger, the zoo is relieved of its liability. I think that's ridiculous--even if he was being stupid, you go to the zoo with a reasonable expectation that the animals can't get at you, and that means thinking hard about how high they can jump, not just building the wall up until you guess there's no way a tiger's jumping out of there.

Re:The zoo should know stuff like this.

[artgeeq]

I couldn't agree more. I was watching The Paper Chase, a movie from 1973, about the education of Harvard law students, and this got me to thinking. What if I had been at the zoo and I happened to be carrying a leg of lamb. The tiger, smelling the lamb, got agitated and jumped his enclosure. Or what if one of the chimpanzees escaped, upset the tiger, and the tiger decided to jump his enclosure and eat the chimpanzee and then the hot dog salesman. The entertaining possibilities are many, perhaps even endless. It just so happens in this case that someone who was very young -- young people often do things that disregard their inherent mortality -- did something that was not smart but not really out of step with what an unsupervised youngster would do. Do we then say that it was the young man's fault for taunting the tiger? I don't think so.

Good movie, BTW.

Re:The zoo should know stuff like this.

[ScentCone]

someone who was very young

Yes, well, they weren't too young to have driven their vehicle to the zoo specifically to screw around, and to have drained a bottle of Vodka, were they? Old enough to operate a potentially deadly vehicle on public roads is old enough not to climb over a fence and walk up to the off-limits edge of an eclosure and start screwing with a 350-pound predator.

35mph sure - but not uphill!

[jbb1003]

So 26.7mph is fine - great, but I'd like to see a tiger run at 26.7mph uphill (at 55 degrees!). That would be vastly more impressive than 35mph on the flat.

Re:35mph sure - but not uphill!

[a_claudiu]

You don't need to run uphill, you just need to have that speed at the launch. Changing the direction does not consume energy/slows you down in the case of perfect elastic collision with a huge object (Earth). In this case the tiger will lose some energy in the feet but that's all.

Re:35mph sure - but not uphill!

[florescent_beige]

The calculations in the ref article are very simplistic, they don't prove that a tiger can jump 33 feet horizontally and 12.5 feet vertically. Obviously the tiger did it, but the calcs don't show how.

Here is something overlooked in the calcs: they say the min energy solution is to launch at 55.4 deg and 81 fps. If the tiger is running horizontally at that speed, to launch it must change it's velocity by 75.5 fps upwards and backwards (wrt the tiger). If the tiger is 5 feet long and the launch happens in one body length (assume 5 ft), that is 5/81 = .16 sec and the average acceleration is 75.5/.16 = 468 ft/sec^2 or 14g. That seems like a lot of g's for the tiger to be able to do with it's legs.

I think the answer to that is the tiger didn't really jump that high. If we assume that the tiger's CG is a 18" off the ground and it didn't jump right over the wall but rather hit the wall near the top, grabbed it with it's front legs and then scrambled over, maybe it only had to jump 7 or 8 feet high. Also, if there was a rock it could use as a sort of launch ramp, maybe the g-level at the jump would be something more believable.

Re:35mph sure - but not uphill!

[florescent_beige]

Ok, I'm hopeless, I copied out the wrong numbers. The min energy sol'n is 55.4 deg & 26.7 mph (39 fps). The delta v is 36.4 fps. The launch time is 5/39 = .13 s. The accel is 36.4/.13 = 285 f/s^2 = 9g. Still too much for a tiger so I think my comments remain valid.

Re:35mph sure - but not uphill!

[Hierarch]

Thanks for saving me the math. I had the same issue with this analysis.

As I recall, they found that the tiger's claws showed breaks and splinters consistent with having clawed partway up the wall. In other words, she probably launched, hit the wall, and clambered up the rest of the way while leaving bits of claws along the way.

Combustion engineering

[Dr. Cody]

Perhaps it's time we get a combustion engineer on the case of:

Tiger, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

Were William Blake's original calculations performed using the higher heating value? Was incomplete combustion taken into account? Unless it was pulverized tiger, which the "symmetry" remark seems to argue against, LOI must be taken into account for any reasonable assumption of the tiger's luminous characteristics.

Prior Research

[ackthpt]

Is it really possible for a 350-pound tiger to leap a 12.5-foot barrier from 33 feet away?

All prior researchers have not returned from the jungle. Information is incomplete.

Coincidentally...

[Anonymous Coward]

...also a trivial problem to solve in the related field of awfuckfuckfuckrunit'satigeristics and also very likely according to Murphy's Law.

Call in the lawyers

[arkham6]

Well, I guess this is enough for the lawsuits to start flying at the zoo. Surely there are enough lawyers out there that will take the case. "Your honor, the zoo was clearly negligent in designing a tiger cage that a tiger could jump out of. The fact that the victim was allegedly taunting the tiger does not factor into the fact that the tiger was able to escape due to the mistake of the zoo building the environment."

Re:Call in the lawyers

[Anonymous Coward]

Feed the lawyers to the tigers.

Re:Call in the lawyers

[Megane]

Well, I guess this is enough for the lawsuits to start flying at the zoo.

Maybe the physicist can calculate the trajectories of the lawsuits too.

Re:Call in the lawyers

[Goobermunch]

This is stupid.

Yes, the zoo was negligent. It should have known the safe parameters for a tiger enclosure.

However, in the law, there's a doctrine called comparative (or contributory negligence). This means that where two people are negligent and one gets hurt, his or her recovery is reduced by his or her own proportion of the fault.

F'rex: A jury looks at this situation and says "Boy, the zoo sure was negligent, they should have built a higher wall. But boy, did this guy act stupidly, entering the enclosure and taunting that tiger. We're going to split the fault between them. And his total economic worth (over the rest of his life) was $800,000 (since he clearly wasn't that bright)."

Then the judge comes along and says--"okay, the award is $800,000.00. But the moron was 50% at fault. Therefore, his family gets $400,000.00."*

* Actually, in some states, he gets nothing, because his fault was not less than that of the other idiot.

But you can't argue that the zoo's not at least partially at fault. It clearly had an enclosure that wasn't adequately designed to keep the tigers in. The fact that the person who got hurt provoked the tiger doesn't lessen the fact that the enclosure failed to do what it was supposed to do.

--AC

Re:Call in the lawyers

[arkham6]

Oh yeah, I know about comparative negligance. But a lawyer sure isnt going to press for that. But regardless the lawyer is more concerned about getting 1/3rd of SOMETHING, so 1/rd of 400K is better than 1/3rd of 0.

Re:Call in the lawyers

[Anonymous Coward]

Feed the lawyers to the tigers. Good thing you posted anonymously. I'd report you to your local SPCA otherwise.

Re:Call in the lawyers

[Goobermunch]

That's why there are lawyers on both sides of a lawsuit.

The lawyer for the dead kid will push for the full amount. The Zoo's lawyer will argue that the kid was more negligent than the zoo and therefore, his family should get nothing.

Sadly, in this case, I think the zoo's negligence is greater. They're just "lucky" that there is a way to blame the kid at all. Imagine the response if the tiger had jumped out and mauled a 1st grade class.

--AC

Re:Call in the lawyers

[nomadic]

However, in the law, there's a doctrine called comparative (or contributory negligence). This means that where two people are negligent and one gets hurt, his or her recovery is reduced by his or her own proportion of the fault.

Actually contributory and comparative negligence are two different things; with contributory negligence, even if the victim was only slightly at fault, the defendant generally will escape all liability. I don't know which one California uses, but most states have switched over to comparative negligence so your point probably still remains.

Re:Call in the lawyers

[MartyBorg]

Consider this:

A Rottweiler, a tall fence, and an 8 year old child.
Child taunts Rottweiler, and pokes it with a stick through the fence.
Enraged Rottweiler manages to scramble over fence and mauls child. Who's at fault?
Change child to 17 year old. Different?
Get him drunk. Different?

Re:Call in the lawyers

[bkr1_2k]

I think you'll find any decent lawyer will also bring into the discussion the fact that the group responsible for oversight of safety for the zoo just provided them with an acceptable safety rating, despite knowing that the wall was lower than the recommended height.

It's conceivable that the zoo was not at fault (legally) because they weren't forced to shut down the tiger exhibit and update it to meet current safety standards. They didn't break any mandates that they add further safety precautions, they hadn't received any bad marks (that I'm aware of) and they were allowed to remain open.

Re:Call in the lawyers

[Goobermunch]

I'm aware of the distinction, but, like you, I'm not sure which one California uses. I didn't want to bog down my comment with a brief digression that would only interest law geeks. As you said, the net result here, probably the same.

--AC

Re:Call in the lawyers

[AshtangiMan]

An interesting point . . . 8 year old taunting Rottweiler through a fence with a stick? Is the fault of the parent of the 8 year old. The Rottweiler will die, and that will be two tragic events. The Rotts I have owned would most likely have stayed out of reach of said stick, or would have grabbed the stick and played with it, and the 8 year old would have been fine. The changes you subsequently make don't really change anything. The prefrontal cortex IIRC does not finish maturing until the age of 20 or so (early 20s perhaps), so the fault would lie still somewhat with the parents, though more of it with the teenaged kid. The dog would still be put to death. Any dog that reacts with that kind of rage should be. The dog owner would face a court case, and who knows how that would work out, given that the fence was tall.

But the reall problem is the comparison of Rottweiler (a domesticated animal) with a Tiger, even a tiger in a zoo. There is a normal expectation to be reasonably safe around domesticated animals, though when one taunts, kicks, or otherwise abuses them there is an expectation that one would be injured as a result. There should be no expectation of safety when taunting a wild animal, be it a deer, a racoon, or even a tiger, even when the tiger is behind a wall and a moat, and you are kept from the wall by a fence which signifies a "do not cross this line" point. The fact that this dude climbed the fence I think is the most salient point here . . . he acted to circumvent a portion of the safety precautions that the zoo put into place, and did so knowingly. I agree with the "poor tiger" sentiment. Tigers should be allowed to be tigers, and when I go to the zoo (with my young neices) my reaction is still "poor tigers".

Re:Call in the lawyers

[rs79]

1) That he taunted the tiger doesn't strike me as relevant. The assumption is the tiger can't get out. Otherwise where's the "these animals will hop out and eat you if you piss them off" sign? Would he have taunted the tiger if his expectation of the cage was anything less than 100%?

2) Are his potential damages at all mitigated by the fact that what he was doing was a criminal activity? Tigers actually are on the US federal endangered species list despite being non-native and there is a law against harassing endangered species.

Re:Call in the lawyers

[sdpuppy]

the award is $800,000.00. But the moron was 50% at fault. Therefore, his family gets $400,000.00

...and then the zoo presents the bill to the family:

Quantity (1) Siberian Tiger (excellent condition, near extinct) $400,000.01

tragedy all around.

Re:Call in the lawyers

[darkeru]

actually, it kinda is their fault because its been reported the tiger used the guys leg as a way to climb out so yes, it is their fault for taunting it. karma makes the world go around. have a great day

Re:Call in the lawyers

[Goobermunch]

1) I'm not sure how relevant it is either. Apparently, the young men were standing on top of a railing around the enclosure. There's been some suggestion that they may have been throwing things at the tiger or dangling into the enclosure. Clearly, they did something to provoke the tiger, since she hasn't done anything like this before . . . .

2) It's unlikely that his possibly criminal activity will reduce his damages. Realistically, to prove negligence based on criminal conduct, you've got to show two things. First, you have to show that the law exists to protect a certain class of people from a certain type of harm. Then, you have to show that you fall into that class and that the harm is of the type the law was intended to prevent. Here, I think the anti-harassment laws were intended to protect the endangered species, rather than the human beings. Although, once you've pissed off a tiger, you've become an endangered species.

--AC

Which begs the question...

[imstanny]

Which begs the question; What kind of methods are used to determine the 'standards' for an inclosure?

Re:Which begs the question...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, first you must consider a spherical tiger of uniform density...

Re:Which begs the question...

[framauro13]

Judging from the San Francisco zoo I'd say Trial and Error.

Re:Which begs the question...

[thirty-seven]

"Begs the question"?

Re:Which begs the question...

[Cheapy]

No. It doesn't beg the question. It maybe "raises the question", but it doesn't beg it at all.

Re:Which begs the question...

[Sage Gaspar]

That begs the question, why are you still trying?

Re:Which begs the question...

[FesterDaFelcher]

Or an enclosure? :)

Re:Which begs the question...

[mdvandam]

This standards work great for Argentina. There is a place Zoo Lujan, where anibody can enter to play with tigers an adult lions.
I love the place, I went every month, you can feed them with your hand.

see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ya4JxuKdPX4

Another interesting calculation...

[SharpFang]

I did a similar calculation a while ago.

An object of 750kg can accelerate to 60km/h in 5 impulses (rapid pushes).
How far will an object of 75kg travel when one such impulse is applied at angle of 45 degrees upward?

The 750kg object is a horse. About 5 pushes of hind hooves are enough to reach the full speed.
The 75kg object is a human kicked by the horse (remaining motionless with a counter-push of front hooves).

The result was something like 30 meters. The damage was equivalent to fall from 6th floor.

And they tell us horses can't say "no" when they don't want sex.

Re:Another interesting calculation...

[Bastard of Subhumani]

I think your figures are a bit off, seems you're combining the weight of a draught horse with the acceleration of a racehorse.

Re:Another interesting calculation...

[SharpFang]

quarter horse: weight about 500kg, max speed of 88km/h and very good acceleration.
I don't know how fast draft horses can sprint, but I'm pretty sure the calculation isn't all that much off.

Re:Another interesting calculation...

[Anonymous Coward]

"And they tell us horses can't say "no" when they don't want sex."

It's fascinating that you felt the need to calculate whether or not horses can say no when they don't want sex...

Re:Another interesting calculation...

[Life2Short]

A horse is a horse
of course, of course
Unless you try to force
unnatural intercourse
upon the horse...

Apologies to Mr. Ed

Re:Another interesting calculation...

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would anybody moderate an obvious furry positively?

Re:Another interesting calculation...

[Bazer]

And they tell us horses can't say "no" when they don't want sex.

I wanted to make a snarky comment implying something between you and Mr.Hands' but a view of your homepage removed all doubt.

Re:Another interesting calculation...

[foetusinc]

As someone who has been kicked, trampled, and bitten by a wide variety of horse breeds, I can tell you your math looks fine to me.

Re:Another interesting calculation...

[everphilski]

it's what the smart ones do in Texas...

Re:Another interesting calculation...

[c6gunner]

Well, 1) Your analysis is based on bad assumptions, so your result is way off. and 2) You're a sick bastard for fucking a horse.

Re:Another interesting calculation...

[Chris Burke]

You're a sick bastard for fucking a horse.

True, but as he clearly established using Science, the horse wanted it. :)

Re:Another interesting calculation...

[Flunitrazepam]

try feeding me to the horse first

Re:Another interesting calculation...

[Flunitrazepam]

Well, 1) Your analysis is based on bad assumptions, so your result is way off. and 2) You're a sick bastard for fucking a horse.



i think this shall be my new sig. it works in so many ways

Re:Another interesting calculation...

[c6gunner]

rofl

I imagine that sig is going to get you some interesting responses in the future. Good luck!

great!

[apodyopsis]

time to work on my tiger cannon as the perfect means to an end to deal with a prize jerk who gets off on taunting caged animals!

the question of blame is interesting, yes there is blame to the zoo for the inadequate protection, but there is also blame to victim no. 1 for being a prize asshat.

the tiger had superior knowledge of the situation

[John_Sauter]

The repeated mentioning of this guy taunting the animal irritates me, because it seems to imply it was his fault.

Sure, if I saw a guy taunting animals at the zoo I'd think he was a complete jerk. If it was really out of hand, I'd call security to arrest the guy.

But it's not something he deserved to die for.

The tiger, obviously, disagreed with you. I submit that the tiger had better knowledge of the extent and degree of taunting that you do.

Possibilities vs explanations

[Schraegstrichpunkt]

"Is it really possible for a 350-pound tiger to leap a 12.5-foot barrier from 33 feet away? ... But I guess we already knew that following the death of Carlos Souza at the paws of Tatiana, a Siberian Tiger he had allegedly been taunting at San Francisco zoo at the end of last year."

If we already know the answer, then the question really is, can we explain how a 350-pound tiger to leap a 12.5-foot barrier from 33 feet away, or do we need to do some more research?

Re:Possibilities vs explanations

[Anonymous Coward]

can we explain how a 350-pound tiger to leap a 12.5-foot barrier from 33 feet away, or do we need to do some more research?

I am in favor of doing a lot more research. However, we'll need to figure out how to keep the tiger from getting shot after it leaps over the enclosure wall and mauls the snot-nosed teenager or we'll go through too many tigers.

Re:Possibilities vs explanations

[Anonymous Coward]

The tiger must have simply leapt up the wall with a short run on the waterless moat and wouldn't need to jump across the moat. Watch the video in Youtube or google that shows how a tiger leapt from the ground all the way up (seemingly with not much effort) to the top of an elephant when the wildlife officials tried to dart it.. There were tourists that too that video while they were all on a wildlife safari in east India. Watch the reaction of the elephants as well.

Inaccuracies

[sifi]

Looking at this diagram: http://www.sfgate.com/c/pictures/2008/01/03/mn_grotto.jpg You can see that it is 33ft along and 2.5ft up for starters. (12ft is from the bottom of the moat, not from where the tiger jumped).

Then the tiger's centre of mass is probably about 2.5ft up anyway so it more about being able to jump 33ft flat.

Also speed doesn't translate into distance in this simplistic way either: if it did humans would be almost able to jump the distance (max speed = 26.25mph) which is close as damm it to the 26.7mph required.

Re:Inaccuracies

[Bob-taro]

Also speed doesn't translate into distance in this simplistic way either: if it did humans would be almost able to jump the distance (max speed = 26.25mph) which is close as damm it to the 26.7mph required.

Actually, the (human) long jump record is 7.52m, so we almost can jump that far (well, same ballpark, anyway). I guess it depends on how well you can shift that forward momentum into upward momentum.

That is a good point about the center of gravity. It may have already been a few feet in the air AND a few feet past the edge when it left the ground. Likewise, it may not have quite needed to get it's center of gravity on a trajectory that would clear the wall, as long as it got it's front paws on the opposite side enough to pull itself the rest of the way over.

Re:Inaccuracies

[Bob-taro]

Actually, the (human) long jump record is 7.52m

My bad, that's the women's record. Men's record is 8.95m (according to wikipedia)- much closer.

Re:Inaccuracies

[sifi]

I agree, but they also calculated that they could clear 12.5ft 33ft away at that speed, which humans definetly can't do.

Re:Inaccuracies

[Anonymous Coward]

Humans ARE almost able to jump the distance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_jump [wikipedia.org]. World record is just about 1 meter short of the tiger leap, not counting the 2.5ft vertical.

Re:Inaccuracies

[fbartho]

Not exactly. the 12.5ft figure refers to the bottom of the moat, see this comment:
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=438748&cid=22260946

Re:Inaccuracies

[Anonymous Coward]

Then the tiger's centre of mass is probably about 2.5ft up anyway so it more about being able to jump 33ft flat.

Speaking about inaccuracy, i am surpised no one picked this up from you.

First of all, just because the wall height is 2.5 ft from the ground and the tiger's center of mass is also 2.5 ft up, it does not mean it's a 'flat' jump. The bottom part of the tiger still must clear the wall during the jump or else the bottom part will crash on the wall. So, you need to calculate the center of mass of the tiger from its jump posture and calculate the vertical clearance needed to safely go over the wall.

Second of all, even if what you say about the height were correct, it'd still not about jumping 33ft. Jumping a 33-ft horizontal distance will only get the tiger to tap its head on the wall. The tiger must jump at least 33 ft + the body length (it starts the jump at a distance of its c.o.m to its front legs from the ledge and the tiger must land at a distance of its c.o.m to its butt over the wall).

Re:Inaccuracies

[Zebbie]

Actually, humans almost can jump the distance. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_jump

If a human can jump almost 30ft, it seems entirely reasonable for a tiger to jump 33ft across and 2.5ft up, and I would be surprised if they couldn't do substantially more than that.

There's more going on here

[ckhorne]

The numbers don't tell the entire story. Just because something can go 27mph doesn't mean it can necessarily project itself over the fence at a given projectory. The worlds fastest humans can go 27mph, but I'll put money against their ability to jump over a 12.5' fence; the world high jump record is 8'. Tigers and people are built differently for sure, but I'm not sure how the math applied in this document applies to animals when so many other factors are at play.

Re:There's more going on here

[Sockatume]

I think the point is that a trivial, back-of-the-envelope calculation would've told them that an idealised tiger could've jumped the fence. If you build a fence which can hold an idealised tiger, it's more than enough for the real thing. I'm sure our engineers, physicists and chemists will agree that a bit of head-scratching and guesstimation is advisable before you do something that could blow up in your face.

Re:There's more going on here

[bkr1_2k]

Sometimes it's not that simple. When was the cage built? My fiance's company did several enclosures for the National Zoo in DC, one of which was designed to hold bull elephants. When they tried to find out how much force a charging bull elephant can inflict on a wall, there was no data. They figured a simple F=MA type calculation, but how do you "average" strength? There's no way to do it, and it's very difficult to account for things like how much power a rutting bull can bring to bear against a wall.

Obviously the enclosure doesn't meet modern safety guidelines, but I'd wager those guidelines weren't in place when the enclosure was built. So how do you determine the priority for upgrading enclosures to meet modern guidelines?

Re:There's more going on here

[Maximum Prophet]

I sure the human high jump record is without touching the top. When my dog jumps an obstacle, she jumps so that her front legs touch, and she uses the obstacle to push off of.

Re:There's more going on here

[a whoabot]

A human can get over a 12.5' concrete wall, they don't have to jump over to get over, just reach the top with their hands.

I'm only around 6 feet and I could probably get over, as long as I was wearing some decent sneakers (I know we used to run up these big cottonwood trees at a park (they actually have a WP page for it, hmm...) when we were kids, reaching up to 20 feet easily; not as vertical, and more grip on those than concrete though): just run half way up it and grab the top and pull, still a lot of grip between the vertical concrete and rubber soles. A 7 foot or 8 foot man could easily get over a 12.5 foot wall, I'm sure.

Re:There's more going on here

[Sockatume]

Those are all good questions but I was trying to clarify the purpose of the mathematical exercise, not get into a debate about who was to blame.

Re:There's more going on here

[SpinyNorman]

I'll bet Dr.J could have done it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPQUBY-HadY

Re:There's more going on here

[ckhorne]

I'm not sure why an "8 foot man" is even a consideration here... A 20ft man could probably get over a 12.5' wall, too, but I don't see too many of them walking around, either. The tiger can do it from 35 feet away, according to the article, and it didnt' require getting just it's front paws up to the top and pulling itself up. Sure, it didn't fly over the top, but it didn't jump then scramble up, either. To be able to use the top of the wall as a landing point, the rear feet would be item in question. My point still stands - the equations don't show anything. It takes energy to push that tiger up in the air, and the tiger has to supply that energy effectively while going 27mph. Basic physics isn't going to be enough here. If it did, then an elephant (with a max speed of 25mph) or a giraffe (max 32mph) would be able to clear the same fence. A quarter horse (max 47.5mph) would be able to jump clear out of the zoo....

Re:There's more going on here

[lamona]

... but it didn't jump then scramble up...

Yes, it did. According to the veterinarian who did the autopsy on the tiger:

An autopsy conducted by a zoo veterinarian on the Siberian tiger after police shot it to death showed that the animal had been "very determined to get out," Matthews said. Its claws were broken and splintered by clambering up the concrete moat wall, Matthews quoted the veterinarian as saying.

Re:There's more going on here

[a whoabot]

I was just trying to say that a human could get over a 12.5 foot wall. Not that the analysis was wrong or right way to determine if the tiger did.

Ob. Simpsons:

[Farmer Tim]

"Och, someone save me from the wee turtles! They were too fast for me!"

I'll wait for the Mythbusters segment on this

[sizzzzlerz]

before I finally decide.

Re:I'll wait for the Mythbusters segment on this

[EricWright]

I can just see it now... a pissed off tiger leaping out and shredding poor ol' Buster. I think the lack of meat might just piss off the tiger even more!

Re:I'll wait for the Mythbusters segment on this

[lucifig]

They'll spend an hour trying to recreate it with hydrolics and/or explosives, fail, and then declare the myth busted because they couldn't accomplish it.

Re:I'll wait for the Mythbusters segment on this

[Tablizer]

I can just see it now... a pissed off tiger leaping out and shredding poor ol' Buster. I think the lack of meat might just piss off the tiger even more!

They'd probably strap pig's meat to it. They always use pig's meat. And then Grant would automate Buster to wave his arms and say "Na na na, here pussy pussy pussy...."

Re:I'll wait for the Mythbusters segment on this

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's the conclusion:

"We took a life sized Tiger that we won at the fair and stuffed it with chicken guts to make it as real as possible. We hit it with a bat to enrage it, then farted in its general direction. This was all done right next to a 20 foot wall. The Tiger failed to jump over the wall."

MYTH BUSTED

"I really expected the Tiger to jump the wall. I mean, if it can't even jump a 20 ft wall, then what chance does it have of jumping a 30 foot wall. I think it's safe to say that this myth is busted."

"Yes, definitely busted, but lets see what would have to happen to make this myth true."

"We lowered the wall to be only 6 inches high and repeated the experiment. The Tiger still couldn't jump the wall. In fact, it was mostly motionless except for when the bat was striking it."

"This myth is totally busted. Tigers just cant jump walls."

"No, they definitely cant. But something interesting happened when were were done the shoot. One of our productions assistants picked up the Tiger and carried it over the wall."

"You're kidding?"

"Nope, the Tiger actually made it over the wall with some extra help."

"But the myth wasn't about Tigers with help, it was just about Tigers."

"You're right, this myth is still busted, for a Tiger to jump a wall, the wall needs to be very short -- around 6 inches -- and it has to have someone carry it."

MYTH BUSTED!!!

/ hates that show // the whole bird through the windshield thing was a travesty of science

Ya know...

[Bluewraith]

Since I heard this story I have kept believing that it was some drunken college kid throwing french-fries at the Panthera tigris and subsequently losing the rest of his fries when disemboweled. I think my original quote was "Hey! Let's see what will happen when I throw a french-fry at a tiger! Make sure to put it on YouTube!"

Wow what a surprising answer...

[Sepiraph]

I thought the tiger flew.

What I'd REALLY like to see

[Fx.Dr]

Quantum Physicist Calculates Trajectory of Tiger At SF Zoo

Really, just stick the damn tiger in a box.

Re:What I'd REALLY like to see

[Tony Hoyle]

The quantum physicist would merely point out that there's a small possibility of the tiger merely passing through the enclosure fence, so the height is irrelevant.

Re:What I'd REALLY like to see

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not so certain about that.

Two hunters

[Hognoxious]

Two hunters are in the jungle and they see a tiger coming towards them at the other side of a clearing. Fred raises his rifle, and pulls the trigger. It misfires. Then Bill's gun jams. The tiger is steadily approaching, licking its lips. Fred suddenly takes off his pack and starts limbering up. "What are you doing," says Bill, "you'll never outrun a tiger."

"True - but I only need to outrun you!" replies Fred.

Re:Two hunters

[Catbeller]

Fred was wrong. Tigers can multitask. They can even turn around and go back after the other monkey. Tiger 2 - Humor 0.

Hey, it amuses me.

A lot

[ArchieBunker]

Wanna bet the tiger would still be in its cage if these drunken idiots had decided NOT to shoot it with a slingshot? The only tragedy here was the tiger having to be killed.

Re:A lot

[Otter]

What if a child with a limp walks by the tiger enclosure? Or someone with a bandaged wound? Or a stray dog gets into the zoo and barks at the tiger?

It seems clear to me that you build a tiger exhibit in a way that doesn't require the tiger's continued good will to keep it inside.

Re:A lot

[ucblockhead]

It would also still be in its cage if the zoo had built a wall of the recommended height.

Re:A lot

[192939495969798999]

I've been to tens of zoos hundreds of times, as I'm sure many of us have, and I always look at the tigers. They are almost always sleeping, or maybe moving to where the food is, eating it, and then sleeping. Once I saw one playing with a ball or a tree trunk and looking excited... and then it got its food that it was waiting for, ate it, and layed down to sleep again. In all of these situations the tigers seemed to care less that there people present, including typical zoo noise like kids "roaring" at the tigers. I shudder to think the amount of contact/irritation/etc. that would be necessary to have the following happen:
1) distract the cat from sleeping,
2) make it get up,
3) make it target you,
4) make it risk its own safety to jump out of its "den" to attack you,
5) make it actually attack, and
6) make it track you hundreds of feet past many other potential targets, now that it's free.

Re:A lot

[DoofusOfDeath]

The only tragedy here was the tiger having to be killed.

I disagree. Most of us go through phases of being quite evil and pathetic, and also of being selfless and kind. Most of us are sometimes wretched, sometimes wonderful, and mostly in-between. As a parent, I have a deeper love for my kids than I ever would have expected prior to being a parent. I know they will be sometimes evil; one of my jobs is to minimize that. But I think it would be a tragic, albeit a just one, for most persons to die in this manner.

Re:A lot

[mpe]

Wanna bet the tiger would still be in its cage if these drunken idiots had decided NOT to shoot it with a slingshot?

If you are going to attack a large predator which both outmasses you and can run much faster than you then you really don't want to use a weapon which will simply annoy it.

Re:A lot

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm, well if they indeed did shoot the tiger with a slingshot, I'd say the tiger got its "extra-judicial" revenge on the people who did (and nobody else), and the tiger is dead now.

So maybe the wall was the right height, and the world is a better place for it? ;)

Re:A lot

[FiveLights]

When I go to the zoo I do not bother the animals. I don't tap on the glass or yell into the cage or throw stuff into the enclosure. At the same time, I really don't like the idea that the tigers can jump out whenever they really feel like it. I don't think I want to take my kids to a zoo where the tigers are kept in only by their own laziness.

Re:A lot

[llZENll]

The original post couldn't be more correct. "The only tragedy here was the tiger having to be killed."

Let the tiger kill 1 person, 100 people, 1000 people, it is a fucking TIGER people, not a bunny rabbit, it was born to do one thing only, KILL! DO NOT expect it to do anything else if its free, and sure as fuck don't kill it for doing so, tranquilize it for crying out loud. Any tiger left on the face of the planet is worth 1,000,000 times more than any human, they are endangered, WE ARE NOT.

Re:A lot

[penguin_dance]

What if a child with a limp walks by the tiger enclosure? Or someone with a bandaged wound? Or a stray dog gets into the zoo and barks at the tiger?

What if these jerks had been teasing the tiger on a day when the zoo was full of people instead of a holiday when there was almost no one present?

And actually there WAS a case of a stray dog being attacked by a tiger in Tennessee. However that was because the dog (also not big on brains) swam across the moat. Apparently he didn't read the "objects are larger than they appear" sign. Fortunately for the dog, the tiger was young and inexperienced at hunting and keepers were able to distract it and get the dog out. The dog still required surgery for the puncture wounds it received.

I seriously doubt the tiger would have breeched the pen except that it was enraged. This was no prey drive in action--the tiger was not hunting for food (or a limping child). It was just very, VERY pissed off. That doesn't mean the zoo is not responsible, but I would put responsibility at 50-50 between the zoo and the jerks. If one or the other had not been doing the wrong thing, this attack wouldn't have occurred.

Re:A lot

[Anonymous Coward]

It's wonderful example of Darwinian Evolution. Given long enough, zoo visitors & zoo tigers will co-evolve so that the visitors won't tease hard enough to provoke the tiger to leap the barrier, and the tiger will evolve to be more tolerant of teasing - but there will always be throwbacks & sports to keep the media interested.

Re:A lot

[philspear]

You know, that might explain some things, like why so many children with crutches walk into the zoo, but none ever leave.

Re:A lot

[idontgno]

Well, I think the huge pile of crutches and wheelchairs in the various big cat enclosures should have clued you in first. I'm just sayin'.

Re:A lot

[Nkwe]

It seems clear to me that you build a tiger exhibit in a way that doesn't require the tiger's continued good will to keep it inside.

Maybe not. All of our jails are not maximum security. We have minimum security faculties and even work release programs. Anything less then "maximum security" depends partly on the good will of the inmate. Animal enclosures are no different.

It is really an issue of risk management. You take the take the risk of an escape (likelihood of it happening and cost that occurs if it does) and compare it to the cost of mitigating the risk (building a better jail or animal enclosure) and make a business decision. In the SF Zoo case either the risk analysis wasn't done, or more likely it hadn't been updated and included the assumption that a zoo visitor would not deliberately encourage the tiger to get out (by taunting.)

Re:A lot

[ceoyoyo]

I saw a tiger go after a squirrel once. It was kind of surreal. It looked EXACTLY like a house cat, right down to the butt wriggle. Except that it was a full grown Siberian tiger.

Re:A lot

[Anonymous Coward]

Two words for you:

NON-WHITES.

Most non-whites view animals as 'things' to be tortured, used, killed, and eaten. There are no animal welfare organisations in muslim countries, or Africa.
Non-whites are the problem - that beautiful tiger's life was worth more than a million of the scum who were attacking her (firing stones at somebody with a slingshot is attacking, in case you didn't know). The bastard deserved to die, the tiger did nothing wrong.

Re:A lot

[KillerBob]

What if a child with a limp walks by the tiger enclosure? Or someone with a bandaged wound? Or a stray dog gets into the zoo and barks at the tiger?

y'know... the last time I visited the Metropolitan Toronto Zoo, I was 13 years old and walking on crutches. My leg was in a cast. And I visited the tiger enclosure. The animals largely ignored me, just as they would anybody who's not throwing rocks at them. If you're trying to tick off the animal, it's your own darned fault if the animal attacks you.

They have a good life there... food presented to them, shelter, safety, no predators. And the cats are smart enough to understand just how good a deal that is. You have to really piss it off to get it to attack you.

Re:A lot

[Anonymous Coward]

Well sure, if it's your own kids being evil. However, if someone raped your wife or daughter, I doubt you would be so quick to rationalize the evil in human nature. We regularly punish people for being evil in our society. The tiger did the same thing the only way it could. In fact, I would go further than the GP and say that the only fault of the zoo was in not sufficiently protecting its animals from human abuse.

I assume anyone who has been bullied can sympathize with the tiger. "Tragically," for the idiots, they were not dealing with a peer, but an efficient killing machine whose only limitation was imprisonment - an obstacle that the tiger was finally pushed to overcome (for the first time in how many decades?).

I think what's most interesting in this case is that the tiger only attacked the three people tormenting it. The cops were forced to shoot, not when the tiger turned on them, but when it continued to attack its previous victim. That tiger wanted justice on three specific people.

Re:A lot

[uglydog]

it's tragic if it's my kid. it's justice if it's someone else's.

not to say your viewpoint isn't valid, just that i see it different.

Re:A lot

[skarekrough43]

I disagree. Most of us go through phases of being quite evil and pathetic, and also of being selfless and kind. Most of us are sometimes wretched, sometimes wonderful, and mostly in-between. As a parent, I have a deeper love for my kids than I ever would have expected prior to being a parent. I know they will be sometimes evil; one of my jobs is to minimize that. But I think it would be a tragic, albeit a just one, for most persons to die in this manner. It's tragic for anyone to die in that manner, especially in a place whose core goals is making attendees aware of these animals and how their habitats are being encroached upon and destroyed and how few there are of them left in the world.

And I do agree, we all go through those phases in life where we become malicious individuals barely worth the air we breathe.

But to think that we have lost anything but an utter and complete retard in this idiot that got loaded and fired rocks at a Tiger is to give humanity WAY more credit than is deserved.

As Bill Hicks was prone to say; "Were missing a moron."

This is natures way....the real tragedy is that were rife with idiots as stupid as The SlingShot Victim and yet the Vehicle For Justice in the world is an endangered species.

If the Tiger were still alive the only thing I would throw him was a steak to thank him. ....and of course it would be waaaaay back past the barrier.

Re:A lot

[grimner]

Most of us go through phases of being quite evil and pathetic Very true. Don't forget these guys were teenage boys as most slashdotters once were. I don't have enough fingers to count the number of dumb things I did as a kid. It's a wonder any of us live through our teenage years. Although I agree these guys were dumbasses, cut them some slack. Did you ever drag race as a kid? Play with explosives or other weapons? Drink way too much? Drugs? Everyone has done phenomenally stupid things at one time or another.

Re:A lot

[OwnedByTwoCats]

I took my daughter to the Columbus (OH) zoo four or five years ago. She was 4 or 5 then. They have a white Siberian tiger there. The enclosure has a clear wall that met the ceiling of our area; we were on one side, the tiger was on the other, and I didn't see a way from one to the other.

Anyway, this tiger seemed a bit agitated. It was pacing it's enclosure. It paid some attention to us on each round, watching. It was quite a thrill to see hundreds (they can be up to 800 lbs) of top predator walking quite quickly towards me, eyes fixed on mine, until he passed just inches away. That it was inches of plexiglass and not air made the experience a thrill, and not a terror.

Re:A lot

[Grishnakh]

Although I agree these guys were dumbasses, cut them some slack. Did you ever drag race as a kid? Play with explosives or other weapons? Drink way too much? Drugs? Everyone has done phenomenally stupid things at one time or another.

Nope, I can't say I ever did any of those things. I did some dumb stuff, but nothing life-threatening besides some slightly bad driving (but still nothing like drag racing). And I certainly had enough sense not to taunt large predators. If I had, I would have deserved to be mauled to death, just like this idiot.

Sorry, but "cutting people slack" is why human behavior seems to be getting steadily worse, even in my own lifetime. Humans need to be held to higher standards. Other animals aren't stupid enough to tease large predators, so why do we want to give humans a pass for that?

Re:A lot

[EvolutionsPeak]

There is a huge difference between doing something phenomenally stupid and doing something phenomenally cruel as well as stupid. These kids were certainly old enough to know that what they were doing was wrong. Brushing off kids drinking to stupidity is one thing, but justifying people's cruelty just because they are young can not be a good thing.

Re:A lot

[fbartho]

did it catch the squirrel?

Also... I wonder, if a tiger does something stupid like tripping or running into something, does it pretend it was on purpose and go to wash itself like housecats do?

Re:A lot

[ceoyoyo]

No. It wasn't hungry, just playing, so it didn't wait for the squirrel to get suitably far away from a tree. That was one terrified squirrel though.

I think if a tiger trips or runs into something it just eats all the witnesses.

Re:A lot

[Anonymous Coward]

Let the human taunt 1 tiger, 100 tigers, 1000 tigers, it is a fucking HUMAN BEING people, not a bunny rabbit, it was born to do one thing only, TAUNT! DO NOT expect it to do anything else if its free, and sure as fuck don't blame it for doing so, fine it $100 for crying out loud. Any HUMAN named BOB left on the face of the planet is worth 6,000,000,000 times more than any animal, BOBs are endangered, animals ARE NOT.

OK that was stupid but the point is: don't make excuses for the tiger because the tiger was doing was a tiger does. This is even stupider... and makes me want to make excuses for drunken teenagers because drunken teenagers do what drunken teenagers do. Humans "being human" seem to do things like build zoos, capture tigers, and taunt them. Tigers "being tigerly" seem to do things like kill. OK, both are doing what they do... so what? You got anything better in the way of logic or philosophy? Why are tigers better than humans again? Because there are less tigers than humans? Is that about it? Or something else? Maybe tigers are somehow more "natural" or "honest" or "pure" or some crap?

So far in the eternal cosmic battle between tigers and BOBs... BOB seems to be winning. Must be the thumbs. Now, you are outraged about this... why? I would think you would be rooting for the BOBs because they seem to be superior somehow. Oh, wait, you don't think humans have some kind of MORAL responsibilty to take care of the animals because... why? God created them both and one is superior and therefore "responsible" somehow? Or it is just because of your little census thing?

I know tigers are "cool" but, come on, its just lifeforms doing what lifeforms do... your reasons for favoring one over the other are... what again?

Sorry I just read my millionth comment about the "poor tiger" and the "stupid evil teenagers" and had my fill.

Re:A lot

[dwpro]

I wonder if you would feel the same were it you in a different position, say, limp in the jaws of an enraged tiger.

Re:A lot

[llZENll]

I thought of that and yes I would feel the same way, why kill the tiger when you can tranquilize it, even if it may slightly increase the risk of a human being killed. I'm just very suprised my post got modded up, I now think more highly of the ./ crowd.

Re:A lot

[Anonymous Coward]

if a tiger does something stupid like tripping or running into something, does it pretend it was on purpose and go to wash itself like housecats do?

Yes. Little cats are very much like big jungle cats, except for their desert background. House cats are well adapted to hot and dry conditions and this influences some behavioural differences. House cats like lazing about in the sunlight a lot more than other felids of all sizes, and usually aren't very interested in playing in water or swimming. Large cats always prefer to laze about in the shade, and most -- even the occasional lion -- are avid swimmers. Don't shoot a spray bottle at a big cat, and don't expect them to stop to shake a wet paw dry if they suddenly come across a stream, river or moat. Also remember that they're not like sharks. They can climb into boats or follow you onto shore.

The other major difference is that staring at a little cat will usually provoke a flight or submit response (the latter is a different sort of embarassed washing; the former can simply be looking away in search of somewhere else to be that isn't covered by your gaze). You can't win a staring contest with a tiger. Really. Plus they have round pupils, and in the Bengali subspecies (P tigris tigris and P t bengalis) they narrow noticeably when meeting your gaze ("Mmmm, challenging food"? It scares the hell out of me, anyway).

The attack mode is slightly different too; like a housecat, the Siberian subspecies (P. t. altaica) prefers to swat or bite the upper back, whereas the Bengals prefer a throat-bite. The ducking reflex is sometimes useful against the latter. The same instinct will make you toast against the former. Fortunately, Siberian tigers are much less likely to attack humans, and most injuries involving them are the result of attempts to play with the pathetically weak-backed but reasonably well tolerated (almost vaguely friend-like) humans they're familiar with.

Except, of course, in the case of the late Siberian tiger named Tatiana, who seems to have deliberately hunted down the human victims in this tragedy.

Pissed off housecats usually just leave poo on your pillow or somewhere you frequently walk barefoot in the night.

The sickest part about the tiger attack...

[vudufixit]

Was the fact that people left all sorts of candles, flowers, etc for the tiger that attacked the boy and was killed. Virtually nothing was left for the mauling victim.

Re:The sickest part about the tiger attack...

[Punko]

No. the sickest part was putting the tiger down because a human was stupid beyond belief and a zoo didn't build an enclosure to protect the public AND the tiger from stupid humans. The tiger deserved the tribute because it died because it behaved to its expected nature. The human was mauled because he was STUPID and the zoo was irresponsible.

You can blame the zoo and blame the human, but the the tiger was innocent - the tiger was the victim here. Do not loose sight of this fact.

Re:The sickest part about the tiger attack...

[eln]

The tiger was an innocent victim, and people feel sympathy for her. She was provoked and did what her instincts told her to do. The guy who got mauled is at fault for taunting her, and the zoo is at fault for not making the wall high enough. The only real innocent party in all of this is the tiger.

Re:The sickest part about the tiger attack...

[Anonymous Coward]

Good riddance, the stupid fucking wog.

Re:The sickest part about the tiger attack...

[iainl]

To be honest, taunting a larger foe because they believed they were safe situation to do is expected nature for stupid humans, too.

Re:The sickest part about the tiger attack...

[ceoyoyo]

Let's see:

Tiger - wild animal, responding to a threat.

Victim - stupid yahoo in a place he clearly wasn't supposed to be for the sole purpose of taunting said wild animal.

Zoo - endangered the public with a wall that was not only too short but also did not meet standards.

The zoo obviously doesn't deserve flowers. The stupid yahoo doesn't either. What did the tiger do wrong?

Re:The sickest part about the tiger attack...

[Anonymous Coward]

That's because he deserved it for teasing the damn thing.

In fact, his death should be made fun of as an example of why not to be an idiot.

Re:The sickest part about the tiger attack...

[darkfire5252]

LOSE! It's LOSE! I swear, this has become so common it's starting to infect even the intelligent ones...

Re:The sickest part about the tiger attack...

[Anonymous Coward]

"The tiger deserved the tribute because it died because it behaved to its expected nature. The human was mauled because he was STUPID and the zoo was irresponsible."

By your very statement, the human deserves a tribute because he to behaved to his expected behavior.

Lateral velocity != jumping velocity

[daffmeister]

From TFA:

From our calculations it was shown that a tiger only needs a little over 26 mi/hr to cross the 33 ft moat and clear the 12.5 ft high wall. From the current data that is available, a tiger can attain a maximum speed of 35 mi/hr.

35 mi/hr across the ground != 26 mi/hr at a 55 deg angle. I'd like to see how they propose converted that lateral velocity to the highly inclined one.

This is high school physics done badly. Very poor analysis.

Re:Lateral velocity != jumping velocity

[Anonymous Coward]

You can find out for yourself. I have a slingshot you can borrow if you want...

Re:Lateral velocity != jumping velocity

[hermit_tries_virtual]

No, this is simple high school science done right... I bet in your calculations, you forgot to fire the tiger from a tiger sized ballistic cannon!!! Redo your math with the cannon involved, and you will see why he is a scientist and you are not.

P.S. If you are a scientist, you will see why his math was published and yours was not... either way really...

Re:Lateral velocity != jumping velocity

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly right. This calculation shows it would also be "easy" for a horse and rider to jump over a 12.5 foot fence with a 33 foot moat. show riders should be ashamed using only
7ft fences with no moat. A hippo could jump a 6 foot fence with a 16 foot moat by this calculation, now that would be a sight to see.

Re:Lateral velocity != jumping velocity

[bidule]

From TFA:

From our calculations it was shown that a tiger only needs a little over 26 mi/hr to cross the 33 ft moat and clear the 12.5 ft high wall. From the current data that is available, a tiger can attain a maximum speed of 35 mi/hr.

35 mi/hr across the ground != 26 mi/hr at a 55 deg angle. I'd like to see how they propose converted that lateral velocity to the highly inclined one.

This is high school physics done badly. Very poor analysis.

Pah! Using imperial unit to do the calculation was a dead give-away. Real physicists use CGS.

Re:Lateral velocity != jumping velocity

[daffmeister]

Completely different application of force. Sorry not relevant.

Re:Lateral velocity != jumping velocity

[daffmeister]

Bingo. No wonder the big cats look happier these days then in olden-times when they had nothing but bare concrete to pad around.

Now they have realistic jungle environments to explore complete with cannon toys.

Just wait til the hippos find out!

Re:Lateral velocity != jumping velocity

[BigGar']

What they're saying is that the tiger would only need to get to 26 mi/hr at a launch angle of 55 degrees to clear the 12.5 ft wall 33 ft away, however, the maximum speed of a tiger is 35 mi/hr - 9 mi/hr faster than needed, thus the tiger could clear either a taller wall at 33 ft away or a 12.5 wall farther away.

In any event given the maximum known speed of the tiger it should have been a simple matter to know that it was capable of jumping out of its "cage". Converting lateral velocity to highly inclined is called jumping perhaps you've heard of it. Also at 35 mi/hr the tiger wouldn't need as steep an angle as it could leap from farther away.

My cats at home don't seem to have a problem with going from a near full run to near straight up if they want to, enough so that I can easily imagine a large cat going from full run to only 55 degrees.

Re:Lateral velocity != jumping velocity

[Anonymous Coward]

35 mi/hr across the ground != 26 mi/hr at a 55 deg angle. I'd like to see how they propose converted that lateral velocity to the highly inclined one.

This is high school physics done badly. Very poor analysis. Agreed. If you apply the same analysis to humans, who have been observed to run 100 meters in under 10 seconds, you'd imagine that a human could jump straight up into the air at 10 m/s at a 90 degree angle, thus achieving a hang time of 2 seconds and an altitude of 5 meters (16.4 feet).

But the record for the standing high jump is less than 2 meters, and for the running high jump is under 2.5 meters, and these include tricks like shifting one's center of gravity. Michael Jordan's hang time was said to be about 0.98 second, so we're talking about an overestimate by a factor of two here.

Re:Lateral velocity != jumping velocity

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe if the tiger built a ramp...but cats don't have opposable thumbs.

Re:Lateral velocity != jumping velocity

[Anonymous Coward]

You can prove by trivial experiment that humans can jump straight up, or at any lower angle, with about the same velocity they can run. It's reasonable to suppose that a tiger - who, unlike a human, leaps at prey as part of her normal lifestyle - could do the same. The difference between 35mph and 26mph is a pretty big safety margin, too. Comments on one of the original article links suggest "well, maybe she couldn't really jump right over the fence, but could jump close enough to the top to grab hold and scramble over"; I don't think that's necessary, though. It seems pretty clear to me that the fence and moat were tiger-jumpable, and moreover that the humans who designed them knew or should have known that based on previous knowledge of tigers' jumping abilities.

Furthermore: we know the tiger *did* jump the fence. So to be asking whether that's possible at this point, may not be the most productive line of inquiry.

Re:Lateral velocity != jumping velocity

[Ford Prefect]

Pah! Using imperial unit to do the calculation was a dead give-away. Real physicists use CGS.

Actually, they use SI. CGS is deprecated, but still appears in lots of older papers, textbooks and the like. Multiple metric systems? The horror!

(Although some would argue that realer physicists just use electronvolts, the speed of light and the Planck constant for everything. Even in situations that don't appreciate it, like tiger attacks. Consider a tiger of mass 8.92*10^37 eV...)

Re:Lateral velocity != jumping velocity

[jalet]

Easy : just prove them wrong by going besides the tiger's wall...

Re:Lateral velocity != jumping velocity

[jimicus]

This is high school physics done badly. Very poor analysis.

Their physics may be appalling but the conclusion that it is possible for a tiger to escape the enclosure at San Francisco zoo appears on first glance to be sound.

Re:Lateral velocity != jumping velocity

[ceoyoyo]

Tigers are designed for leaping.

It's a back of the envelope calculation to show that the result is possible. Journals publish these sorts of things sort of like newspapers publish the crossword puzzle or comics.

Re:Lateral velocity != jumping velocity

[tomhath]

I'd like to see how they propose converted that lateral velocity to the highly inclined one

Ever see a little house cat jump onto a five foot high wall from a standing start? I have. Their hind legs are designed for this kind of leap. And if you doubt the tiger could do it, think again.

Re:Lateral velocity != jumping velocity

[bidule]

(Although some would argue that realer physicists just use electronvolts, the speed of light and the Planck constant for everything. Even in situations that don't appreciate it, like tiger attacks. Consider a tiger of mass 8.92*10^37 eV...) I stand corrected and bow to your mighty units. I, for one, welcome our new eV.c.h overlords.

Re:Lateral velocity != jumping velocity

[sponga]

Wouldn't another thing you want to consider is how much muscle strength is in the tigers leg; which would allow it to leap farther.
I don't know if there is a formula for that.

The tiger got out either way so it has been proven.

Re:Lateral velocity != jumping velocity

[kidgenius]

The real impressive part is how large of a distance that truly is. We see basketball players dunk a basketball. They maybe are clearing something like 3 feet. If they pick up their legs, they could clear 5. Olympic high jumpers can get around 6 feet by arching their back. Now, double this.

The world record for long jump is ~30 feet, but these guys are only getting a couple of feet off the ground. In any case, these are extraordinary human beings. But, this was just a normal tiger. The capabilities of such an animal is mind-boggling. It's easy to see why the enclosure was so small. The original designers looked at this huge cat, built a wall, built a moat, and figured that it would be impossible for this large animal to perform such a feat.

Re:Lateral velocity != jumping velocity

[daffmeister]

I don't doubt that your cats, and this big one, can jump. But they aren't going from full run to straight up at the same speed. They are possibly using the run to help compress their legs, but then it's all down to jumping. The speed of running has got almost nothing to do with it.

As the angle goes lower, the speed of running is more important, but at 55 degrees it isn't helping a lot.

Re:Lateral velocity != jumping velocity

[daffmeister]

That's an entirely different thing and not what's being argued by the article.

I don't doubt that a tiger could do it (the evidence seems to prove that it can). But the article is not talking about jumping from a standing or any other start. It's saying: aerial velocity required to clear the fence with 55 degreee inclination is x, tiger can run faster than x, therefore tiger can clear fence. Those two x's are only marginally related at best but they are making a straight equation. That's the bad physics.

Re:Lateral velocity != jumping velocity

[mdvandam]

I wathed my cat jumping over a wall.

It stays quiet looking to the wall (1,8 meters), then jump to the wall placing the front legs over the wall, and the rest of the body under. Then, in the same movement, kick with rear legs to the wall, using the horizontal velocity to get presure, contact, and convert this to litle vertical jump that make the rest of the body pass over.
I think the tiger is 2 meters tall, that makes if it uses this method, it only need to jump 2,5 meters.
I arrive to this by simple observation. What do you think.

Re:Lateral velocity != jumping velocity

[Anonymous Coward]

Sigh.

Your reasoning in the above post, as well as in the others you've made in this thread, is basically correct.

However, it's based on an implicit assumption that cats change from running to jumping in the same way as humans do.

That assumption is, of course, incorrect.

Cats are, to a much higher degree than humans, made for jumping (pouncing, really) and are hence waaaaay more efficient in converting running speed into jumping ditto.

The conversion ratio is obviously not 1/1, but it's far better than what your posts would make us believe.

For your next post, why don't you explain to us why kangaroos can't actually merrily jump the way they do, since humans obviously can't?

Sorry if I come across as a bit ... peeved, but your arrogance in dismissing the research (where are your factual, actual counter-points, btw?) annoys me.

Re:Lateral velocity != jumping velocity

[Anonymous Coward]

The two x's you refer to are in this case, for cats - not humans, actually not marginally related at all, but very related indeed.

The physics isn't bad.

Your understanding of the properties of (large) cats is.

minimum height

[Eharley]

If you assume the tiger travels at 35 miles/hour, and you solve their equations for the height of the obstacle given that speed, you find that the height of the obstacle would need to be at least 34.5 feet

Re:minimum height

[EB FE]

Like the poster just before you mentioned, that would be the case only if the tiger could achieve 35 mph at a 55 degree angle. His speed is ground speed in this problem (0 degrees), so I don't think enough data was collected to determine how high he could actually jump. Horizontal speed can't be "losslessly" converted to horizontal and vertical speed in the real world.

Re:minimum height

[bkr1_2k]

I don't know why everyone assumes the tiger has to clear the wall entirely. I've seen domestic cats jump across a 15 foot room "bounce" off the wall on the other side and use it as a "spring board" up to a nine foot ceiling to swat bugs, and other critters that got into the house. It's completely feasible that a tiger can do the same thing. (We've all seen video of large cats "running up" trees on discovery channel or similar video sources.)

The cat doesn't have to convert all level velocity to vertical and they certainly don't have to attain enough height to clear the wall completely. I'd guess (and it's just a guess) that a 10' cat (full length averages between 7 and 12 feet) could hit a 20 foot wall at about half height and "spring" up enough to get itself over the top of the wall.

Was it

[Dolly_Llama]

An African or European tiger?

Re:Was it

[defnoz]

Huh? I-- I don't know that.

Auuuuuuuugh!

Re:Was it

[davesays]

I believe tigers come in Asian (Bengal/Siberian), and Mac (X.4). Initially you would think it would have to be one of the Asian varieties because Jobs would never let anything as bloated as 350lbs get out the door. But it blasted out of that enclosure like nobody thought it could either. Amazing! Maybe it was a Mac after all! /ducks

Re:Was it

[laejoh]

What I want to know is if the taunting was done with a kind of french accent and if they insulted the tiger by shouting that one of his relatives smelled of elderberries!

Deserve ?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think nobody meant that taunting a carnivorous 350 pound animal deserve death. But he has to support the consequence of his own act, and the consequence of taunting previously mentioned carnivorous (CLIMBING on top the the security barrier) was death. Most of us don't even see why the tiger had to be killed, really. Those are tiger. To them we are food. They aren't your average 10 pounds kitten.

Re:Deserve ?

[Speck'sBacon]

Um... it had to die because it was loose and could have attacked anybody. The cops arrived on the scene, and put the animal down to protect themselves and others. The law of the jungle: kill or be killed.

Sousa wasn't taunting the animals.

[trailerparkcassanova]

Neither were the other two. The tiger didn't jump 33 feet either; it climbed the side of the wall and pulled herself over. Thank you for playing, though.

Re:Sousa wasn't taunting the animals.

[Chabil Ha']

Care to site your sources for that information? That's well and fine if it's true, but help us differentiate between reality and what you claim it to be.

Re:Sousa wasn't taunting the animals.

[zsouthboy]

[citation needed]

Re:Sousa wasn't taunting the animals.

[Polumna]

Here's a citation for the climbing. The bit about the cement climbing is near the end.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/01/18/MNEIUH4B9.DTL

I can only assume that OP won't give you a response because there are no citations that will come close to agreeing that Sousa wasn't taunting the animals... given that there's an enormous body of evidence including statements by the survivors to the contrary. (Unless you actually believe the eloquent "we didn't do nothing" they told his mom.)

Re:Sousa wasn't taunting the animals.

[statemachine]

Actually, there's no body of evidence at all that any of the three taunted the tigers. The SF Police stopped investigating after nothing, including witnesses (to taunting or other statements), ever showed up.

Cite *your* sources. And I don't mean an article full of conjecture and false statements fed to the press (and later deemed false by the same press) and police by the incompetent and demoralizing zoo director, Manuel Mollinedo.

Re:Sousa wasn't taunting the animals.

[trailerparkcassanova]

Exactly, there is no evidence that the animals were taunted. There is only evidence that one of them had his foot on the railing. But that's not taunting. The zoo fucked up bad.

Re:Sousa wasn't taunting the animals.

[Polumna]

First, the quotes about a pissed off tiger climbing the wall were given by a police inspector quoting (in an affidavit) the zoo veterinarian. Nothing there about a demoralizing zoo director, and I see no more reason to doubt the truth value there than anything anyone else is saying.

Second, shoe prints, blood alcohol levels, and blood inside the fence are not conjecture. To say nothing of Paul Dhaliwal's saying that they "yelled" and "waved" at the tiger. I could bother linking that one, but really, it's in like 90% of the google news results. Surely one of them would be acceptable to you.

I can't help but think this is in some way a semantic argument about the definition of taunting. I would argue first, that it is the tigers definition of taunting that matters here. Further, I don't think it's totally insane to suggest that standing on a gate in the tigers territorial enclosure and making loud noises and waving movements would fit her definition. (I'm going to ignore the blood inside the fence intentionally, because it wasn't confirmed by the police in the article I linked.)

Look, I'm not saying this isn't a tragedy. I'm not saying any of them "deserved" what happened to them. I'm not condoning the people in this thread that have suggested Darwin awards. I'm saying that it just isn't a good idea to piss off a 350 pound cat, and it doesn't matter to the cat if you think you're being obnoxious or not. Given that I believe the zoo veterinarian about the claws, it seems to me that Occam's razor says that the tiger was really pissed off at them for something they were doing. It's a lot simpler and easier to believe than that the tiger just happened to go completely off her rocker right then.

If you go out and make fun of a 350 pound belligerent drunk guy in his bar, it's still wrong when he kicks your ass, and he can still go to jail for assault. That doesn't mean that you come out of it smelling like roses.

Re:Sousa wasn't taunting the animals.

[statemachine]

Actually, they are conjecture. Nothing in that KNBC (a *Los Angeles* TV station 350mi away) news report other than a paragraph headline indicates a footprint on the fence -- the reporter fails to back up this "point" with anything at all. Secondly, the police did not make any speculation about whose or what the blood came from or how the blood got there. An easy to explain scenario was that the boy who was killed was trying to run away from the tiger using whatever means necessary and got blood all over the place. And how do we know this wasn't blood tracked around by the tiger?

About the zoo director, the issue is that he was caught lying to the media about the taunting. Furthermore, he has a history of being an untrustworthy, incompetent, and demoralizing manager, which just calls into question even more these "taunting" allegations. The SF Police found *nothing* to back up the taunting claims and stopped investigating. Apparently the footprint story wasn't credible and the blood locations were explained otherwise.

Cats will attack if you just look at them funny, or if they're hungry, or if they're just having a bad day. Why do you believe an overly-aggressive cat with a history of attacking humans will behave in a logical, rational fashion?

Re:Sousa wasn't taunting the animals.

[Polumna]

I read _many_ more news articles that discussed the footprint. Again I'll just have to site google news because I don't care enough to come up with link upon link. I believe an overly aggressive cat will behave in a logical, rational fashion because these things don't happen all the time, and I would be somewhat amazed if the San Francisco zoo has the lowest tiger enclosure in the country. (Though I suppose it's possible. Somewhere has to have that distinction. :) ) Also, attacking IS a logical response to being taunted, from an overly-aggressive tiger's point of view. That's my whole point, it's the simplest and most reasonable explanation in total. I like logical and rational.

More, it's that it seems incredibly more likely to me that three stoned kids, one of whom is pretty drunk, were pissing off said cat than that she just went completely ape-shit insane right-at-that-moment, in the middle of winter, when she apparently has managed to not attack anyone for however long she was there. She was too old for this to be reasonably explained by some kind of mental defect, and too young to have been suffering from any kind of old-age dementia that I understand is somewhat common in tigers. I'm not totally sure of any of that myself. If you'd like the word of some scientist on that one, I could ask my father. The animals he studied for his dissertation were all mammalian herbivores, but I know he knows some big cat specialists. (I seriously would look into it and ask, I'm not trying to tout my father's Ph.D like I know something. I don't.)

Also, I have to point out that the police shelving the investigation means absolutely nothing. They could have plenty of evidence of taunting, but to my knowledge there is no criminal law against irritating wildlife. Again, the one kid SAID they yelled and waved at it, and I've already made my case that that's taunting plenty if the tiger thought it was. I should also point out that I've never meant to imply that the two survivors should be charged with anything. Even if they committed any crimes, or did anything "wrong" ethically, they've certainly paid enough.

Anyway, probably the tiger was overly sensitive. For the sake of the discussion, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and say it was mild yelling at worst. It's still probably just plain smart to treat any animal capable of killing you easily with a modicum of respect. Insert the same analogy about the 350 pound drunk guy in the bar here.

Re:Sousa wasn't taunting the animals.

[statemachine]

So, then what provoked the tiger to attack the zookeeper one year prior?

Re:Sousa wasn't taunting the animals.

[Polumna]

Who knows? Could have just been hungry. It was feeding time, and it looked like she was one of the last getting fed. (I just spent some time looking for news articles related to that event, and some of the accounts are terribly contradictory. A few articles almost made it sound like an accident(!), if you can believe that.) Indeed, it could be that she was just cranky.

I don't think it changes a whole lot. There's a big difference between attacking a zookeeper a couple feet away and clawing her way up a 12.5 foot cement wall. Maybe she really just did lose it and needed to attack somebody. While a random prior attack lends some additional credence to that, random attack still is just waaaaay less likely, IMO, than provoked.

Weird units

[CrystalFalcon]

I cannot be bothered with this metric stuff! Use units I can relate to!

How high was the fence measured in Libraries of Congress?

Re:the tiger had superior knowledge of the situati

[192939495969798999]

Also, taunting a tiger is a lot different than taunting a shrew, a turtle, or any other animal at the zoo. Those other ones don't have a reputation as man-eaters. Who's to say that a tiger couldn't get out of pretty much any enclosure, given that it felt pissed off enough? the 12-footx30-foot distance is supposed to remind you that this cat means business.

Taunting a tiger is a bit like running down the street screaming the N word in Harlem: there are much, much safer ways to be a jackass.

He had it coming.

[Lilith's Heart-shape]

The repeated mentioning of this guy taunting the animal irritates me, because it seems to imply it was his fault.

Wasn't it? If you annoy a domestic cat, you're going to get scratched or bitten. How hard it is to deduce that if annoying a little cat will get you hurt, then annoying a big cat is likely to get you killed? There is a reason that many zoos have signings warning people not to tease the animals. The reason is simple: humans are fragile, and easily hurt by angry animals.

The guy pissed off the tiger, and paid for it with his life. If he hadn't been so careless, he'd still be alive. Frankly, he should be put into the running for a Darwin Award.

Darwin award contender?

[Bastard of Subhumani]

Being a jerk for a few minutes to a tiger doesn't mean you should die.

But it does mean that if you do die, it's your own stupid fault.

Re:Darwin award contender?

[Tony Hoyle]

Being a jerk for a few minutes to a tiger doesn't mean you should die.

But it does mean that if you do die, it's your own stupid fault. QFT.

Nobody is saying he deserved to die. If you take risks with your life and the risk doesn't pay off.. well tough.

Re:Darwin award contender?

[DaveAtFraud]

He definitely meets the criteria:

1) Removed from gene pool.
2) Removal brought about by own stupidity.
3) Removal was spectacular and unique.

Too bad the killed the tiger. They should have fed his friends to the tiger as a reward for helping cleanse the gene pool of undesirable elements and to complete the cleansing.

Cheers,
Dave

Re:Darwin award contender?

[Waffle Iron]

This whole story mainly reminds me of the classic depair.com poster:

It could be that the purpose of your life is only to serve as a warning to others.

Re:Darwin award contender?

[Hognoxious]

I once described a colleague as being useless; someone pointed out that he wasn't - he could always serve as a bad example.

I do like despair.com, probably the things they're spoofing make me want to puke.

Re:Darwin award contender?

[Vellmont]

Nobody is saying he deserved to die. If you take risks with your life and the risk doesn't pay off.. well tough.

Just another variation on "the world is under my control, as long as I don't do thing X".

This is a case of the world NOT being in your control. The Tiger escaped. It wasn't supposed to be able to. Do you think going to a Zoo is supposed to be a "risky" thing to do? I don't.. but hey, maybe it is.

Re:Darwin award contender?

[DaveAtFraud]

I'm drinking my morning coffee out of a despair.com "Pessimist Mug" today. Love their stuff.

I worked as a contractor at Lucent Professional Services for a year in the late '90s and they papered the building walls with the stupid "motivational" posters. I wish I could have afforded to sneak in one night and swap out their motivational posters for stuff from despair.com. Since noone paid any attention to the posters, it would have been interesting to see how long it took for anyone to notice the change.

Everyone I know who is motivated isn't motivated by a stupid poster. Those who aren't motivated aren't suddenly going to become motivated because of a stupid poster. I think despair.com even has a poster about this ("If all it takes to motivate you is a pretty picture...").

Cheers,
Dave

Re:Darwin award contender?

[bob_herrick]

Iam with you on the Darwin Award. I note in passing that this event has the chance for a double play, as doubtless the author of the calculation is now in the running for an igNobel.

Re:Darwin award contender?

[jafiwam]

Nobody is saying he deserved to die. If you take risks with your life and the risk doesn't pay off.. well tough. Actually, A LOT of people are saying that. (Go visit Fark threads on the subject.)

And, they're right.

Here's a list of other stuff (in case you weren't following all the articles) they did just that day;

- waited for the Zoo to empty out (premeditated)
- collected tools to do the task (slingshot, and something else (i forgot)
- drove drunk (open container of vodka in the car) to the zoo
- stayed around after zoo was closed (trespassing)
- climbed over a barrier designed to protect animals from humans
- lied to police about what happened
- clamed up, lawyered up right away

Those asshats deserved to die just from the drunk driving alone. Acting in such a way that causes an endangered animal to be killed brutally by police, while two of them (India-Indians) should know damn well what tigers can do, yeah, that pretty much adds up to NO sympathy.

These asshats deserved to die. Just like those asshats that drove off the end of the Travolta's runway deserved to die. The human race is better off without them.

This is not just kids fooling around tying cans to the neighbor's dogs tail. It's real, bona fide criminal activity and animal abuse.

Re:Darwin award contender?

[nexuspal]

"Just like those asshats that drove off the end of the Travolta's runway deserved to die. " So when someone you're driving with messes up, you too deserve to die. Nice logic there, remind me not to make friends with someone like you...

Re:Darwin award contender?

[statemachine]

You should cite your sources.

- waited for the Zoo to empty out (premeditated)
What? They came to the zoo during normal hours.

- collected tools to do the task (slingshot, and something else (i forgot)
There wasn't any slingshot. And the reason you forget something else is because there was *nothing* else!

- drove drunk (open container of vodka in the car) to the zoo
How the hell do you know that? They could have been drinking after the car was already parked.

- stayed around after zoo was closed (trespassing)
Maybe they were making their way out? The zoo closed at 5pm. That doesn't mean that you are immediately trespassing. It just means that the doors are closed to people going in. The attack happened pretty close or maybe even before 5pm. We'll never be sure because the boys spent some time trying to alert zoo authorities (who didn't believe them) before attempting to call 911 (without success) the first time. It took a second call to 911 to get someone besides that annoying "please hold" recording that California loves to make you listen to for up to 10 minutes.

- climbed over a barrier designed to protect animals from humans
Once again, no evidence.

- lied to police about what happened
Do you have evidence that they lied? The SFPD would love to hear from you.

- clamed up, lawyered up right away
Maybe they were scared because they were minors and had been drinking and the zoo director was immediately making up stuff about slingshots and foreign objects in the tiger exhibit that were later proved untrue, and the zoo staff didn't believe and wouldn't help them at all? I'd clam up too and hire a lawyer in such an unwarranted adversarial situation.

Here's the article from Jan. 29, 2008 where the SFPD find no evidence of taunting and discontinue the investigation.

Re:Darwin award contender?

[robin.com.au]

Acting in such a way that causes an endangered animal to be killed brutally by police, while two of them (India-Indians) should know damn well what tigers can do, yeah, that pretty much adds up to NO sympathy. Why should it matter if they were Indian specifically from India? Would our reaction be any different if they were American Indian or [Insert Specific Race Here]? They are asshats and that's relevant enough.

Re:Darwin award contender?

[LordVader717]

If you're driving with someone doing stupid stunts, the yes, you're at least as stupid as the one behind the wheel.

Wait a dog gone minute!

[GodfatherofSoul]

I took engineering physics in college, and from what I recall all formulas only worked on massless, frictionless systems and didn't account for air resistance. Now, how the hell did a physicist crunch these numbers?

Re:Wait a dog gone minute!

[joto]

Wow, what is the trajectory of a massless tiger? Go to another college, boy!

Re:Wait a dog gone minute!

[Anonymous Coward]

You must have had a pretty weak physics course, then, because the one I took did teach us how to account for mass, friction, and air resistance.

In fact, I'm going to go out a limb here and say that you're not remembering your class correctly at all, because if nothing else, you should have come out with "force = mass * acceleration" engraved into your brain.

Re:Wait a dog gone minute!

[Anonymous Coward]

Accounting for mass of course you did (but must forget, misspeak). Friction terms are very standard (if a little harder to deal with but no big deal in simpler situation), they just don't introduce these complexities in more elementary courses. I haven't looked at these particular computations, mind.

Re:Wait a dog gone minute!

[GodfatherofSoul]

I was making an attempt at a joke, apparently very poorly.

tiger weight

[polar red]

from wikipedia :

Reaching up to 4 metres (13 feet) in total length and weighing up to 300 kg (660 pounds), tigers are comparable in size to the biggest extinct felids.

Enough already!

[sootman]

Slashdot itself is one of the original blogs. It would be a very boring place if they did nothing but link to CNet stories and press releases. There are lots of interesting people out there that you've never heard of (and otherwise wouldn't hear of) and they are doing lots of interesting things. So can we kill the 'pimpmyblog' tags already? If you don't like reading blog stories, go start your own news aggregator/discussion forum. Maybe with blackjack and hookers. In fact, forget the site...

Re:Enough already!

[Anonymous Coward]

You missed the point. The pimpmyblog tag is because the same person who submitted the Slashdot post owns the blog.

Re:Enough already!

[sootman]

So what? It was still interesting enough that an editor approved it. This isn't just like free, unrestricted advertising. Tell me: if you write a post on your low-traffic blog, what are the odds that someone else will come along and find it post-worthy? If you think it's suitable for Slashdot. go ahead and post it and see if it gets approved. What's the problem here?

A high school physics problem, good for an olimpic

[Anonymous Coward]

The authors formulate a high school physics problem, good, for example for an olimpic competition. Nothing wrong with that, it proves thast something can be done with high school knowledge. However I expected more from a professional paper, which should go further. The tiger is not a material point, but a body with a variable geometry. A more detailed biomechanical description shoud be used, in order to describe the way the jump is initiated, etc. Nevertheless the elementary, high school style analysis of the authors is a good starting point.

However, in its present form the paper is not publishable in a scientific journal, much more should be done.

Re:the tiger had superior knowledge of the situati

[Speare]

the 12-footx30-foot distance is supposed to remind you that this cat means business

Except, apparently, the Zoo knew that the 12 foot wall was four feet short of recommended guidelines for containing a healthy man-eating tiger in the presence of the general public. Also, the Zoo should quite rationally be fully aware that in any sample of the general public, there will be jackasses who would like to taunt said cats, and also vulnerable people who are completely innocent nearby, should the tiger still be hungry after eating said jackass.

Re:the tiger had superior knowledge of the situati

[NinjaTariq]

I nominate this guy for a Darwin Award (or second it if someone has already).

Sure he didn't deserve to die, and I feel for the family of the guy killed. However I agree with your analogy, he didn't think through the whole pissing off a tiger idea. My cats, about a 10th or less of the size of a tiger can jump almost half that hight should the need arise, I would expect a tiger to be able to make a similar feat.

The Zoo is equally is also to blame, should the guy have not taunted it, it would obviously still have been possible to jump that.

Who are you to judge?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nature has a history of being a harsh judge. Don't mess with the mother.

The physics is missing a crucial step

[k2backhoe]

The math is correct, but the physics is wrong. The paper makes the assumption that running 35 mph horizontally is easily translatable to 27 mph at a steep (55 degree) angle. A tiger is not an elastic body that can bounce off a rock at any angle without energy (velocity) loss. For the math to apply as it is written, it would have to assume that the tiger accelerated from 0 to 27 mph on a 10 yard long ramp elevated at 55 degrees. That is NOT what happened. I am not saying that the tiger couldn't leap out of the enclosure, I am just saying that the paper does NOT prove this. Don't be swayed with lots of pretty numbers and formulae, use common sense to do a sanity check.

Re:The physics is missing a crucial step

[Galaga88]

A tiger is not an elastic body that can bounce off a rock at any angle without energy (velocity) loss.

Ah, but you seem to be forgetting the wild European Tigger.

Re:The physics is missing a crucial step

[u38cg]

This is true, but on the other hand when designing a wall to contain half-tonne autonomous killing machines, I would prefer to err on the side of keeping it simple, and presuming that Mr Tiger is more than capable of travelling at 35mph in whatever direction he (or she, in this case) so chooses.

A word on tiger behavior

[bluesangria]

I was watching a Discovery channel show on some guy who was raising two tigers in a park preserve to be eventually released in the wild. To avoid incurring any dependencies on humans in the tigers, he kept away from them as much as possible, only associating enough to feed them and care for any injuries. To train them to hunt, he would make the tigers chase a deer or goat carcass dragged behind a car. The tigers were rewarded with their "kill" once they managed to get a good bite on the carcass to hold it. Afterwards, to up their training, he simply released several live prey animals into the park (goats, gazelles, etc.) and let the tiger's instincts take over. One thing that impressed me, and that they did not know before studying these tigers, is that tigers tend to go on "killing frenzies". Without being hungry or being threatened, tigers will simply run from one prey animal to the next, slaughtering it, taking a bite or two, then rushing to find another. They are, quite simply, relishing their power as a predator. After the end of a frenzy, the two tigers had slaughtered almost 40 prey animals in a short while.
I don't know whether or not those boys taunted the tiger, and honestly, I'm not sure it would have made a difference. But I'm fairly certain the tiger would not have "settled down" after only killing a couple of people, not when the place was filled with fearful, slow two-legged animals acting like "prey". Welcome to the world of wild animals.

blue

Re:A word on tiger behavior

[joto]

A captive tiger trained to "kill" carcasses dragged after a car, actively kills defenceless animals released into its fenced area? What's next in this brilliant line of research? I have only two things to say in response to this "research":

1. Any kid could have told you that
2. This won't tell us jack shit about how tigers in the wild would react

Useless

Re:A word on tiger behavior

[Detritus]

I've heard of dogs doing the same thing. They will kill a whole group of domesticated rabbits or chickens, tearing open their enclosures, just for kicks.

Re:A word on tiger behavior

[Debello]

No, no, no, no and NO. You know nothing of tigers.

1. Tigers have practically no natural instincts when it comes to being predators. Tigers in the wild have to be trained by their mothers how to do things like hunt, climb trees, eat properly, etc. These are things that a human cannot teach. Therefore, any tiger born in captivity cannot be released into the wild and survive. It simply does not have the skills necessary.

2. Look at the way these tigers were trained. Just two bites, and then they get their kill. They can eat it whenever they want. Now observe the way that they killed the 40 animals released into the zoo. Killing frenzy? Yes. By all definitions, that's a killing frenzy. But was that killing frenzy a product of their instincts? No! If you've done any research or paid attention to anything about tigers, you would quickly learn that my first point is quite correct and proven. Tigers have no natural instincts when it comes to killing their prey. Again, observe how it was trained to hunt and how it slaughtered the wild animals: in the same fashion. This is because it knows no other way to kill animals. You say, 'welcome to the world of wild animals.' I say, 'welcome to the world of tigers not being properly trained by their human caretakers.' All tigers are in captivity are oversized house cats, and about just as aggressive. This means yes you need to be careful, but it means no they're not just going to kill you because they're hungry.

3. Which leads me to my third point. where you say:

But I'm fairly certain the tiger would not have "settled down" after only killing a couple of people, not when the place was filled with fearful, slow two-legged animals acting like "prey". Well, you put your certainty in the wrong place. Unless the tiger in TFA was trained to attack and kill humans for food, the chances of it deciding to just jump out of its cage and go on an eating frenzy is virtually zero. A tiger must be TRAINED to be a predator, and it must be TRAINED to attack humans for food or for pleasure. In the wild, this training is not done by instincts like you so ignorantly proposed, but by the tigers mother. And this leads me to my fourth point:

4. You know nothing of tigers. (See opening sentence)

Re:A word on tiger behavior

[bluesangria]

The tigers weren't captive, they were orphaned so the guy was doing his best to train them up to be independent hunters and release them into the wild. I didn't say anything about the area being "fenced", nor that it was small, nor that the prey animals were conveniently released right next to the tigers. I seem to recall the show described the park preserve as being many square miles in size. The tigers had to actually HUNT the animals. That was the point. Finally, these tigers were WILD to begin with. They just happened to be orphaned, so, yes, this person's experience DOES INDEED tell us how tigers would act in the wild.

blue

Re:A word on tiger behavior

[waveformwafflehouse]

The concept of a "killing frenzy" does not really apply in a tiger's natural environment. I doubt there has ever been an evolutionary period of three legged deer or grassland goats in which to hone a tiger's instinct to stop hunting when it has enough food.

Re:A word on tiger behavior

[Anonymous Coward]

FYI, lions do this too. There's a show that's been on Discovery channel in the past year where some juvenile lions took out an entire herd of donkeys... WAY more than they could ever eat.

Re:A word on tiger behavior

[rholland356]

Yeah, that Discovery Channel really rocks!

I saw a show where engineers modeled a battle between a giant crocodile and a bevy of meerkat. First they modeled it on a computer, then they built robotics to mimic certain actions, like the croc chomping down on a dozen meerkat, or several meerkat crawling through the croc's butt into its colon, where their claws made short work of the soft tissue.

You know, I'm thinking it might be cool to model that zoo incident in a similar fashion. And it could come in handy at the trial(s).

Re:A word on tiger behavior

[Anonymous Coward]

You're "fairly certain" because you saw a show on the Discovery Channel? FWIW, I saw the same show and was surprised to see the frenzy, but without proof from tigers in the wild, it could be a result of the tigers being raised by humans in captivity. These tigers were seeing a large number of live prey for the first time -- unlike in the wild where it's common to see large herds -- so it could be a case of the tigers simply not knowing what to do. I haven't done any "research" but it seems logical / natural for ANY type of living creature to hoard food when possible for survival.

Re:A word on tiger behavior

[techpawn]

I was watching a Discovery channel show...

Didn't they also have a show about a father and son who made motorcycles that was heavily edited to made it seem as though there was constant in fighting and that the son did all of the work by himself in this shop to make the bikes?

Not taking anything from the programming, but remember it is on television and they DO need to sell advertising so they might have done something during filming or post production to create the frenzy...

Re:A word on tiger behavior

[GonzoPhysicist]

The major difference here is that this tiger was not brought up without human interaction. My grandmother used to raise large cats and primates for the SF zoo and these animals were treated much more like domesticated pets than wild animals.

Re:A word on tiger behavior

[Anonymous Coward]

Was this particular tiger raised in captivity? If so, it would refute most of your claims.

Re:A word on tiger behavior

[syousef]

You should be modded troll. I have no idea from your post what your experience with tigers is (though I'd be interested to know). However the GP started his post with "I was watching a Discovery channel show on some guy". He wasn't claiming to be a tiger expert. Just someone interested who'd seen a documentary. Now the quality of documentaries varies wildly (no pun intended) - just take a look at the Steve Irwin tripe people seem to eat up without considering the man was a dangerous fool and not a conservationalist - so there's no reason to suspect this poor bloke was trying to do or say anything malicious and jump all over him. He just reported what he saw on the doco.

Re:A word on tiger behavior

[the honger]

and in our prison systems there are people being treated, conditioned, altered, corrected, "other", and released producing similar results...

What about the tiger?

[internetcommie]

All she wanted was peace and quiet for her all-day nap. Did she deserve to die for that?

Humor: Mythbusters

[KDN]

Is it really possible for a 350-pound tiger to leap a 12.5-foot barrier from 33 feet away?

Coming up next on Mythbusters :-).

The SF Zoo? Hah!

[spun]

This is an example of the tragedy of privatization. The SF used to be a public zoo. It also used to be a good zoo. Then it was privatized, and the company cut costs and corners. In the 90s, zookeepers were caught stealing branches off of people's eucalyptus trees because there was no budget for koala food. It would not surprise me to learn that the zoo's management knew all about the potential problem and refused to do anything based on cost.

Re:The SF Zoo? Hah!

[gb506]

This is an example of the tragedy of privatization.

How so? The fence is the same height today it was when it was a public zoo. The zoo was public when the fence was built. Seems a better case can be made that public zoos don't know how to design safe tiger enclosures.

Re:The SF Zoo? Hah!

[Vellmont]

This is an example of the tragedy of privatization.

No it's not! This is a great example of the Free Market in Action!

See, the Zoo will now lose money in a lawsuit, their insurance will go up, and they might go out of business. The "Zoo Industry" will then learn more about the risks of Tigers escaping. They'll increase ticket prices to cover losses incurred by higher insurance prices. Or, if the costs of replacing the fence higher insurance costs, they'll replace the fence! Everyone Wins!

(Well, except the guy who got killed, and the people Mauled.. but those are just the "negative externalities" some people have to bear in a free market. Too bad for them. Hooray for the Free Market!

(I'm just slightly kidding here, in case anyone can't tell)

Re:The SF Zoo? Hah!

[spun]

I'm saying they probably knew and did nothing about it.

Re:The SF Zoo? Hah!

[sacrilicious]

How [is this an example of the tragedy of privatization]? The fence is the same height today it was when it was a public zoo.

Obviously the tiger evolved, and the zoo budget didn't include studies of the tiger's new superpowers. Same thing happened with the flying squirrel and the electric eel, but in those cases nobody died.

Re:The SF Zoo? Hah!

[jadavis]

I'm saying they probably knew and did nothing about it.

There is a disconnect in your logic somewhere. Wouldn't the above statement be as likely to be true when it was a public zoo? In fact, if it was indeed built as a public zoo, then they had to know. The private company might have not noticed (not saying that they did, not saying that they didn't), but there is no way to not notice the height of an enclosure as you're building it.

This is really more of an argument for privatization than against it. It is in the best interests of a private company to avoid a lawsuit. But a public entity doesn't care: the taxpayers always pay it.

Re:The SF Zoo? Hah!

[jadavis]

Well, except the guy who got killed, and the people Mauled.. but those are just the "negative externalities" some people have to bear in a free market.

Why was the tiger more likely to jump over the wall after the zoo became private? It's not like they sold the top half of the wall as soon as they bought the zoo.

Re:The SF Zoo? Hah!

[rleibman]

I call B.S.
Have you been to the SF Zoo lately? I'm a proud member, the zoo is very nice, the landscaping is amazing, the new African section, the new gorilla enclosure and the new Grizzly bear enclosures are awesome and much nicer than the older parts of the zoo, which are really crappy.

Re:The SF Zoo? Hah!

[planetralph]

I challenge your facts about privatization. The SF Zoo is a public zoo owned and operated by the City of San Francisco. As in many cities there is a zoological society that raises money and collaborates with the zoo on planning and spending the money they raise but they do not profit from zoo, own the zoo, or make final decisions on anything. The city owns the zoo, collects the zoo admission fees, budgets for the zoo. If you know different, please provide a reference because I think your ideology is driving your facts. Also, I lived in the bay area in 90's and I certainly don't remember anything about zoo keepers steeling branches off eucalyptus trees. Please provide a reference because I think your whole post is fictional. Ralph

Re:The SF Zoo? Hah!

[spun]

Admittedly, I have not been since I left San Francisco in 2004. Has it gotten better since then?

Re:The SF Zoo? Hah!

[spun]

Can't JFGI, eh? Here: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=San+Francisco+zoo+privatization&btnG=Google+Search

As for the thieving zookeepers, I read that in the SF Bay Guardian, whose online archives only go back to 2001. Sounds like you live in the area, how about you hit up a library and look it up yourself?

Re:The SF Zoo? Hah!

[rleibman]

It's beautiful, though I have only been going since around 2004. The crappy parts are all the pre-privatization sections.

Re:The SF Zoo? Hah!

[spun]

So they haven't spent any money fixing up the crappy parts? They've owned that zoo for over ten years and they can't fix up the areas that were built back in the thirties?

Re:The SF Zoo? Hah!

[rleibman]

Don't be so dense. It's more like instead of fixing the old parts they're replacing them... little by little. Their funds are not infinite, public or private.

Re:The SF Zoo? Hah!

[planetralph]

My apologies, I missed the nature of the public/private partnership. You're right, it is a troubling way to run a public facility because the city is probably still on the hook for liability if the zoo foundation doesn't have the funds. It's not what I usually think of as privatization because it's a non-profit, but it does put the private entity in the driver's seat of a public facility. The zoo has made some good improvements since '97, but it doesn't make up for any compromises with safety or animal welfare. I wondered why the city was handling the PR so badly. I guess it was the foundation that handled the PR badly. I don't have time to look up the Eucalyptus (I'm out of the area now), but you're right about the zoo partnership, so you're probably up on that one too. Ralph

Re:The SF Zoo? Hah!

[spun]

I'm not being dense. Older zoo habitats are a nightmare for the animals, just bare metal and concrete cages. They should have fixed those problems before expanding, for the sake of the animals. If they cared about the animals instead of profit, they might have.

Re:The SF Zoo? Hah!

[EvolutionsPeak]

Yeah, because the government has NEVER cut corners to cut costs. What country are you from?

Re:The SF Zoo? Hah!

[toddhisattva]

You are not thinking literally enough:

"Then it was privatized, and the company cut costs and corners." Means the evil capitalist scum actually shaved the top corners of the tiger wall so that they were too low.

Please use the proper left-focused lenses when reading Slashdot. Unauthorized eyewear prohibited.

Re:The SF Zoo? Hah!

[rleibman]

You are being dense. They didn't add more animals, they fixed the environment of the animals they have by expanding the zoo and creating new areas, doing just what you suggest. They haven't gotten around to fixing the environment of ALL the animals, not yet. And you seem to think that the resources are infinite to do everything. The zoo is a private organization, but not a profit based one! They care about the animals first, but without an attractive environment for the zoo patrons nobody would visit and there wouldn't be any money to take care of the animals. Man it makes me so mad to see the poor understanding of BASIC economics of the average person... even here, in a site where part of the intellectual elite is supposed to inhabit.

Re:The SF Zoo? Hah!

[spun]

Ah, I misunderstood. When you said the crappy parts were all pre-privatization, I assumed that there were still animals in them. You're saying they put the animals in new enclosures. How did you get into the older animal-free areas, and what was there?

Now, how much do you know about the Friends of the Zoo? It is a non-profit group that decided they wanted to make money off the zoo. They got the city to basically give it to them, and pay for half the animal handlers. They then proceeded to rake in the cash and pay themselves huge salaries. Calling them a non profit is technically true, but still a joke. After they took over, the quality of exhibits and animal care took a nose dive, and people stopped going to the zoo in droves. Now, it sounds like they may have gotten their act together, but for many years, their management of the zoo was a nightmare for patrons and animals both.

It makes me so mad when I see people with such poor reading comprehension and logic skills even here, a sire where part of the intellectual elite are supposed to inhabit. You don't even understand the point I'm making. And you don't seem to understand the real economics of ripping people off. If it's a free market solution, it must be great, eh? No privately owned company has ever ripped anyone off! Dumbass.

WB Cartoon

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone remember the cartoon, I think Warner Brothers, where they are exploring a zoo and keep going back to some guy pestering a lion in a cage, and the narrator tells him to stop. In the last seen, there's no one at the lion's cage and they assume he learned his lesson and left, until the lion opens his mouth to show two eyes in the darkness and the guy's voice lamenting his action.s

Re:WB Cartoon

[Catbeller]

Well done, I do remember that. Cartoons can be helpful -- maybe I internalized that joke as a kid and thus don't dare tigers to come nail me. And knowing is half the battle.

Staying on that theme...

[N Monkey]

Unfortunately, the zoo made their initial estimates for the enclosure based on the ballistic characteristics of a Southern Asian tiger carrying a coconut, not an unladen Siberian tiger, so their calculations were off slightly

Now jump that fence or I shall taunt you a second time.

Re:Staying on that theme...

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, what sad times are these when passing ruffians can use slingshots on tigers. There is a pestilence upon this land. Nothing is sacred. Even those who arrange and design animal enclosures are under considerable legal stress at this period in history.

Absolutely not surprising

[Tanuki64]

I once had a guided-tour through a German zoo. When we came to the tigers the guide told us that the tigers in theory were able to leap over the barriers. According to the guide many animals in that zoo were able to escape when they really wanted. However, animals are similar to most people in some aspects. Life is good in the zoo and within the known areas. What is outside is unknown, perhaps scary, so why bother? Looks like the taunting was enough reason to bother for that tiger.

Re:Absolutely not surprising

[ceoyoyo]

I was at the zoo once when a vulture managed to fly out of her cage. It had been a little too long since her last wing clip. She was terrified and spent all her free minutes desperately trying to teleport back through the fence into her enclosure, until a keeper picked her up.

Re:the tiger had superior knowledge of the situati

[Anonymous Coward]

But it's not something he deserved to die for.

Little Bill : I don't deserve this. To die like this. I was building a house.
William Munny: Deserve's got nothing to do with it.
Little Bill : I'll see you in hell, William Munny.
William Munny: Yeah. .... BANG

The point being, so what about deserve? The guy's death was the direct result of his own actions. He should have known better than to piss off a 350 lb tiger, even one behind a 12.5 foot wall.

Who cares!?

[jav1231]

I contend that the enclosure was just fine. The tiger was content until he was taunted. This story had less to do with "how to contain a tiger" than "don't taunt the potentially man-eating tiger!" Note, he only went after those who taunted him! I'm not saying it was justified, but given that the tiger could hardly go to the authorities and his predisposition to violence he did what a tiger does back home.

Re:Who cares!?

[idlemind]

Would you contend that the enclosure was just fine if an innocent bystander was killed? Sure, in this case that didn't happen, but you can't speak as though you know a tiger will only attack his provokers.

Re:Who cares!?

[pclminion]

I wouldn't say it was justified or unjustified. This was a case of nature behaving as nature does. This guy pissed off a very large biological organism and it killed him. Did he deserve it? Let's just say he did something stupid with predictable, catastrophic results. It's no different than accidentally falling off a cliff. Nature kills. And in this case, even if you try to contain the killing nature, it can still be deadly.

Darwin Award.

Re:Who cares!?

[MWoody]

Wow, this has to be the dumbest thing I've ever seen posted on the Internet, much less Slashdot, much less modded to +5. So your argument is we should build cages in such a way so that if the tigers decide they really want to kill someone, they're allowed to do so unimpeded? That the enclosure should only contain the animals unless they really want to get out?

The tiger is a giant killing machine. At some point, regardless of what's going on out in the crowd, it's going to decide it wants to kill someone. Preventing a captive from wanting to escape is not the crux of sane prison design. And it's viewed daily by an endless parade of snot-nosed kids; I find it difficult to imagine any "taunting" that could fall outside of normal daily routine (even ignoring, as has already been pointed out in other replies, that the victim in this case wasn't taunting at all).

Indeed, it's a pity they had to put it down. The fault lies in the zoo designers, not in an animal not only doing what it's evolved to do, but apparently doing it very well. And while it has a sickening Fox-news-esque logic to it, a zoo with an authentic mankilling tiger would attract a lot of spectators, giving the zoo a better chance to do what it's meant to do: educate.

Let's Make Sure...

[mkcmkc]

"Hi, EMS, this is Officer Jones. I'm at the San Diego Zoo and there's a guy here who's been mauled by a Tiger, who I just shot."

"Okay, first let's make sure he's really dead."

"Okay."

(silence, then a gunshot)

"Okay." (pause) "Should I double-check the tiger, too?"

Te guy who died deserves the Darwin award....

[cpotoso]

For doing something really stupid (irritating a tiger) and getting killed, hence removing his DNA from the human gene pool...

Re:Te guy who died deserves the Darwin award....

[EdA]

I thought the kids who were taunting the tiger actually lived and this guy tried to distract the tiger from mauling them. /Ed

A mad tiger can freaking jump!

[sigzero]

I am sure that the taunting and teasing the gentlemen did was ample motivation for the tiger.

He should have just watched this video...

[penguin_dance]

The asian elephant in this is about 12' tall. Back story: A tiger escaped from a preserve in India (Kaziranga National Park) and had killed a couple of farm animals. She was training her cubs to hunt. Rangers had found the cubs and took them (which I find incredibly stupid because now she's stressed and looking for them). Riding elephants, they found the female in the brush and tried to tranquilize her, but the dart missed. What happened next should give you and idea what the jerks in the SF zoo saw.

The elephant trainer survived, but was badly wounded.

Re:He should have just watched this video...

[greenbird]

Riding elephants, they found the female in the brush and tried to tranquilize her, but the dart missed. What happened next should give you and idea what the jerks in the SF zoo saw.

The thing I see of note in this video is that the tiger was smart enough to know to go after the human on the elephant as the threat while still risking retribution from the elephant which I'm assuming tigers wouldn't typically mess with.

Re:He should have just watched this video...

[penguin_dance]

Yes, I noticed that too--I actually saw the video the other day on one of those video shows on TV. She specfically went for the man, distinguishing him from the elephant, which shows a high intellegence. Also, the absolute rage--again, obvious the tiger is not hungry or hunting for food. I wondered who and how long ago they had found the cubs and if she could smell them on the humans.

I thought it would have been smarter to put the cubs in a cage where she could find them (but they were safe) and then just dart her when she came into the area.

Re:He should have just watched this video...

[Anonymous Coward]

The elephant in that video is nowhere near 12' tall. That elephant is about 9' look at the men on it's back for a size comparisson.

Funniest Comment YTD

[Anonymous Coward]

Funniest comment I have read all year. Even if the year just started...

but what about...

[notgm]

ok, a tiger on solid ground could clear that fence, but what about a tiger with wings and a propeller on a treadmill?

Re:the tiger had superior knowledge of the situati

[Beer_Smurf]

More tigers = fewer jackasses.
I don't see the problem.

This just in

[Waffle Iron]

Scientists using the latest computing tools and measuring equipment master the same ballistics computation abilities as an apricot-sized tiger brain.

Coming to a zoo near you...

[Anonymous Coward]

Coming to a zoo near you... ... Three-legged Siberian Tigers

Ig Nobel instead of Darwin

[trastomatic]

ok, tagging is beta, but shouldn't this one be tagged as "ignobel" instead of "darwinawards" ?

Re:Ig Nobel instead of Darwin

[Maximum Prophet]

Wow, you've hit on a great idea. What if someone won a Darwin award AND an ignoble in the same event?

Re:Ig Nobel instead of Darwin

[Anonymous Coward]

I foresee a hat-trick; whilst measuring a tiger trajectory (IG Nobel), someone is eaten by the tiger (Darwin Award), and his/her family sues the Zoo for an incredible huge amount of money (Stella Award)

What about the recommended height...

[cbart387]

Seems kind of redundant to run those calculations. I'm curious if someone's done those calculations on the recommended height & distance. It would be more noteworthy if a tiger was capable of jumping that.

Re:What about the recommended height...

[rholland356]

Apparently, big cats could not jump as high when that pit was dug and the wall built as part of the WPA oo-building project during the Great Depression.

Modern cats are the ones who have survived decades of man's aggressive hunting and removal of habitat, so you should expect they are the fittest. All the lazy, zoo-apt cats are long gone.

Re:What about the recommended height...

[Tanuki64]

Modern cats are the ones who have survived decades of man's aggressive hunting and removal of habitat, so you should expect they are the fittest. All the lazy, zoo-apt cats are long gone.

Yes, I know, you are only fishing for 'funny', but I must still answer. Tigers in zoos are the equivalent of couch potatoes. Compared to the wild living variety untrained and weak. Weak of course only for a tiger.

Re:What about the recommended height...

[rholland356]

Yes, I know, you are only fishing for 'funny', but I must still answer. Tigers in zoos are the equivalent of couch potatoes. Compared to the wild living variety untrained and weak. Weak of course only for a tiger.

Ah-ha! A psychologist AND a biologist in one package! Credentialed in neither, I assume.

My rhetorical comparison of 1930's-vintage big cats with today's big cats is a reflection both on the lost habitat and its impact on these animals, as well as 70+ years advancement in the science of zoology and its application to the general health of captive big cats.

The pit that served to keep big cats captive for decades was proven no longer adequate. Thus, the couch-potato tiger of today is more capable and in better health than the couch potato tigers that preceded it. And it only took taunting by a few mooks to make it evident.

All compressed into one efficient, pithy statement.

Re:What about the recommended height...

[Tanuki64]

Ah-ha! A psychologist AND a biologist in one package! Credentialed in neither, I assume.

Yeah, and a god, too. Ok, not absolutely seen, but compared to a loud mouth like you I sure am.

Just for the record: I never said or implied that I am a psychologist OR a biologist. But I suppose it never occurs to someone like you, that it is possible to learn certain aspects of many fields without being an expert.

Since you imply I claim to be a psychologist AND a biologist you seem to have read some of my other posts. Apparently not the one where I talked with a zookeeper during a guided zoo tour. HE might have been a biologist. HE told me the zoo tigers could leave their contraptions at will. HE told me that they are by far weaker than the free living variety. And even if he did not, the latter is common sense. Zoo tigers don't have to hunt and they usually don't fight. The only thing they do is either sunbathing, eating or sleeping. A human in this situation gets fat and soft. The tigers don't get fat, because their food is strictly controlled. But they still get soft (for a tiger).

Re:What about the recommended height...

[rholland356]

Yeah, and a god, too. Ok, not absolutely seen, but compared to a loud mouth like you I sure am.

Just for the record: I never said or implied that I am a psychologist OR a biologist. But I suppose it never occurs to someone like you, that it is possible to learn certain aspects of many fields without being an expert.

So you felt compelled to pontificate that the reason I posted was to be funny. That was a clumsy rhetorical attempt to be dismissive and calls into question your ability to analyze the text in front of your eyes. Your level of expertise is suspect now in three fields: psychology, biology and rhetoric.

Since you imply I claim to be a psychologist

Implied? Oh, not at all! That's not possible, by definition.

I had to infer it when I read your declaration that my motive for writing the post was to "be funny." If you are claiming to know the motive behind a post written here, then we must infer that you are claiming some measure of authority and experience in knowing the motives of people you have never met. And that led to my conclusion that you are not actually a psychologist, because a professional would not make such claims.

My conclusion is you are just another blowhard.

AND a biologist you seem to have read some of my other posts. Apparently not the one where I talked with a zookeeper during a guided zoo tour. HE might have been a biologist. HE told me the zoo tigers could leave their contraptions at will. HE told me that they are by far weaker than the free living variety. And even if he did not, the latter is common sense. Zoo tigers don't have to hunt and they usually don't fight. The only thing they do is either sunbathing, eating or sleeping. A human in this situation gets fat and soft. The tigers don't get fat, because their food is strictly controlled. But they still get soft (for a tiger).

So, you took a zoo tour, and the zoo-keeper? docent? biologist? bus-driver? said tigers can escape captivity at will. And yet the San Francisco Zoo event shocked us! Apparently, tigers cannot escape their enclosures at will, generally. We know this from a world of zoos and a lack of tiger escapes.

Finally, you seem to want to compare tigers in cages to tigers in the wild, which has no logical relation to any point I made. Your point is so obvious that no one would argue it. I certainly did not.

I compared caged tigers of the 1930s with caged tigers of today, and concluded that today's cats are more able to escape their enclosures than their predecessors.

So, we talk at cross purposes, and raise the level of invective. To what end? You tell me...

Re:the tiger had superior knowledge of the situati

[sseaman]

People taunt tigers in zoos every single day in this country; in fact, the very idea of enclosing a tiger and encircling it with gawking, slow-moving humans seems like a taunt to me. Yet how many people are attacked by tigers at zoos in the United States? It's extraordinarily rare. I don't condone tiger taunting, but as far as sins go, it's venial. Somewhat OT, but I think the "darwinawards" tag is tasteless, and, for me, is yet another piece of evidence against this stupid tagging system.

Re:the tiger had superior knowledge of the situati

[Speare]

Hah, I like your "more tigers = fewer jackasses" concept. Except...

First, they leapt for the jackasses; I feared not for I was not a jackasss.
Next, they leapt for the lame and wounded; I feared not for I was not hurt.
Next, they leapt for the young and tender; I feared not...

Not exactly...

[absurdist]

Unfortunately, it's not as simple as that. Inspectors from the AAZA (American Association of Zoos and Aquariums) were out two years ago and measured the walls of the enclosure, calling them adequate according to their standards. And they're the ones who write the book on these matters.

Still, it's a damned shame. For the tiger, that is. Not for the drunken nimrod who was teasing her, going so far as to pass the barriers erected to keep the public back from the animals, according to the evidence found at the scene.

The whole "taunting" thing pisses me off

[netsavior]

I am sorry to the furbies out there, but I don't give a crap if the guy tied a steak around his neck and pissed into the tiger's mouth. He was not on an african safari, he was not approaching a wild mountain lion. He was at a fzcking zoo - a place that should be "taunt-proof". The news media constantly paints this thing like it is his fault, which is just insane. A tiger escaped and killed someone. Unless the mans actions were "He taunted the tiger by opening the secure door to his cage with bolt cutters" then the man's actions should NOT come into scrutany.

It's a bit like blaming the rape victim for wearing a short skirt.

Re:The whole "taunting" thing pisses me off

[SpinyNorman]

Anyone who has seen a a regular cat (1-2ft with tail, 10-15lb) jump up a 5-6ft wall should realize that a 10ft tiger weighing 350lb certainly has a fighting chance of jumping up a 12ft wall. In fact I'm sure they can do much more than than. If it can clean the thing ballistically as this story notes, then one can only imagine what they can do by "running up the wall" normal cat-style, using their paw-pads to grip the wall and gain additional upward momentum through muscle power.

Only in America would someone whine "but no-one told me it was unsafe to be stupid, boo-hoo".

These morons got precisely what they might expect to have coming to them, regardless of whether the zoo should have built a higher wall. The only real tragedy is that the innocent tiger - en endangered species - was killed.

Re:The whole "taunting" thing pisses me off

[beaulen]

The man's actions should definitely come in to play, fairly or not.

Does someone that doesn't look both ways before crossing the street deserve to get hit by a car? Does a person that doesn't wear a seat belt deserve to smash through windshield if they get into a car accident? It's not so much about deserving or not, but about risk assessment, and it turns out the guy was pretty bad at assessing the risk to which he was subjecting himself.

Re:The whole "taunting" thing pisses me off

[Tanuki64]

Typical nanny state attitude. Make everything super safe, regardless how it is used. Please remove all power sockets from your home. Some idiot might stick its tongue into it.

Re:The whole "taunting" thing pisses me off

[idlemind]

I agree with you.

This story would be a whole lot different had an elderly woman enjoying the zoo been killed due to some kids taunting a tiger.

If three dumb kids can put everyone in the zoo at risk to be mauled then there is a problem with the zoo.

Re:The whole "taunting" thing pisses me off

[Tanuki64]

Yeah, forbid cars. They are inherently dangerous. Constantly people a dieing in car accidents. Even innocent elderly women.

Re:The whole "taunting" thing pisses me off

[rholland356]

Au contraire! The taunting angle is what makes this story fascinating and worth discussing.

You see, that tiger not only escaped and killed, it then hunted down the other two mooks, who had fled to another part of the park. So, something they said must have really pissed off that cat, and cats generally don't pay attention to what ANYONE says, much less drunken mooks.

Perhaps these guys had seen Night at the Museum, in which the security guard dishes up some serious taunting, eventually leading to a dinosaur roaming the city. That movie makes it OK to taunt a monkey and cavemen. And Mongolians. And diorama-folk.

This story is also a metaphor for one society's subjugation of another, or even the racial imbalance of our prison system, where taunting leads to violence. Maybe it is even metaphor for this year's Superbowl, where the NFL is the zoo administration, the Pats are the mooks, and the Giants are a caged tiger, yearning to pounce and dominate.

Besides, where is your outrage for the shooting of the tiger? If zoo staff had done their jobs that cat could have been returned to its cage to await trial, much as errant pit bulls are put on trial. But a really bad zoo administration exposed that unknowing cat to the lethal harm of a cop with a weapon drawn.

And any mook from the street knows how dangerous THAT can be...

Re:The whole "taunting" thing pisses me off

[rholland356]

Some idiot might stick his tongue into a power socket in your home?

Well, we know babies stick fingers into power sockets. And if a baby is in your home, it's probably your issue. So you would have the choice--protect your kid from your power sockets, or join the Darwin Awards.

(And, you CAN use plastic inserts to protect that baby, so you can have your lamp and light it, too.)

Re:The whole "taunting" thing pisses me off

[nobodyman]

Typical nanny state attitude. Make everything super safe, regardless how it is used.

Are you fucking insane? We aren't talking about excessive warning labels on a nerf gun. It's a goddamned 350lb tiger! It shouldn't need to be explained that you need to design a cage so that it *cant* get out of its cage, no matter the level of provocation. Tigers don't speak english. It's very well possible that the tiger would interpret the taunts of a 18-year old male the same as it would interpret a 9-year old girl frantically waving "hello" to the big kitty. Does she deserve to die too?

I'm all for personal responsibility, but when you consider that thousands of visitors pass that cage every single day, the law of probability dictates that someone will do something stupid. So, if the cat can escape from it's cage, it will. It's simply an eventuality. Knowing this, how can any responsible zookeeper *not* do everything in it's power to prevent the tiger from being able to leap out of its cage.

Re:The whole "taunting" thing pisses me off

[Tanuki64]

Well, we know babies stick fingers into power sockets. And if a baby is in your home, it's probably your issue. So you would have the choice--protect your kid from your power sockets, or join the Darwin Awards.

In that case you take precautions against a very concrete risk. You probably also remove plastic bags from your babies reach. Do you remove light bulbs, too? Baby could grab a pillow or a toy, throw it at a lamp at the ceiling far beyond its reach, the light bulb breaks, baby plays with the shards, cuts himself and bleeds to death. Unlikely? Of course. As much unlikely as what happened at the zoo. As another poster said, the enclosure was build 1930. So almost 80 years no problem. Many zoos have similar enclosures with no problem. You simply can't make everything perfectly safe, and, this is my opinion where many might disagree, you should not even try.

Re:The whole "taunting" thing pisses me off

[idlemind]

I never said zoos should be banned so I don't understand your analogy. What point are you trying to make?

Re:The whole "taunting" thing pisses me off

[Tanuki64]

I made a nanny state analogy. No, you did not say zoos should be banned. But try to get a decent chemistry set, like the ones I got during my childhood. Impossible. Why? Probably because something happened and the same discussion stated. Too dangerous, this never should have been possible, yada yada. I like current zoos. But I suppose next time I want to see a tiger in a zoo I have to bring some good binoculars to watch the tigers in a 40 meter deep hole, 1 km away through a 20 cm sheet of bulletproof glass.

Re:The whole "taunting" thing pisses me off

[Anonymous Coward]

Only in America would someone whine "but no-one told me it was unsafe to be stupid, boo-hoo".

Why wouldn't they whine in their home country? Perhaps because they are doctors in their home country?

What a load of crap.

[pavon]

This enclosure was built in the thirties. It was just as dangerous during the ~60 years that it was a public zoo, as it was the last ~15 years as a private zoo. The Association of Zoos & Aquariums, which sets standards for zoo design, first started it's formal accreditation program in 1974. So they should have been aware of the problem for a good 20 years before it was privatized.

There does appear to be problems with the way the SF zoo is being operated now, but this particular case is a long standing condition that neither the public caretakers, private owners, nor the AZA made any effort to fix.

Re:What a load of crap.

[spun]

It's only speculation, but inspectors did look at the enclosure. Management says the inspectors said nothing. I'm guessing, based on past experience with zoo management cutting corners, that they might have said the enclosure wasn't safe, and the management did nothing.

You just hate it when anyone points out where privatization goes bad, don't you? Bet you must love what's going on with the water systems of South America!

Re:What a load of crap.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not how I see it. I figure the management needed to show they meet the required safety inspection, so they called up the inspection org and said, come on out and do an inspection. The inspectors show up, go thru the motions, and prepare a report with a summary saying there are no problems. So the management, which is probably understaffed, overworked and with a minimal budget, gets the 10-second summary of "no problems" and continues on with its busy schedule. To me the zoo management is like any other management group: being that their plate's full, they only react to problems, and in this case, no problems with the tiger enclosure were identified.

First order approximation...

[kybred]

Assume a spherical tiger in a vacuum...

oversimplified

[slonik]

I checked the paper. It is overly simplified on many accounts. First of all, no respected physicist would ever use Imperial Measurement System (foot, mile, etc) in physics calculations. (I have no rational explanation of American fascination with outdated and illogical units.) Secondly and more importantly: a tiger is not a point-like-particle and its movement cannot be adequately described in the way used in the article.
Some of the kinetic energy during its jump is transferred into rotation, movement of his body parts, etc. Unless all these complex interactions are properly accounted for, the problem is not solved. It is quite plausible, that the SF tiger did clear the fence but this paper's proof leaves a lot to be desired.

It WAS his fault.

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's say some idiot made himself a homemade jetpack and strapped a tank full of hydrogen peroxide to his back with some pipes and valves and stuff, and when he lit it for his maiden voyage, it blew up, killing him.

You'd say that was his fault, wouldn't you?

One doesn't deserve to die because one wishes to build himself a jetpack though, does he?

But his demise was still the result of his own stupidity.

As it was for this guy.

Though the zoo is half the blame for building a tiger enclosure which had walls which were too short, knowing they were too short. For that reason, if I were on a jury deciding damages, I would award them. While the guy may not have been killed if he had not taunted the tiger, the zoo still intentionally built a tiger enclosure which was unsafe, knowing full well that someone could easily die as a result, taunting, or no taunting.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Just Had An Idea...

[nexuspal]

It's quite possible that this isn't the first time the tiger has "made it out". It may already have jumped over the fence, knew its capabilities, and then quietly went back into it's enclosure. All to the detriment of the drunken young men :-P

Counterpoint

[oneTheory]

I don't think this is a fault of privatization but of the company that took over this zoo. What good did it do them to cut corners? Now people are afraid to go to the zoo and the company will lose money and maybe go out of business. It doesn't help to cut corners in the long run and good businesses know that. The free market reacts to business in this way and thus regulates it.

But I do agree that lots of private companies don't care enough since they are driven entirely by profit and don't think about safety as much as they should until it's too late.

Everybody's Stupid at least Once

[Tablizer]

I'm not sure I agree; I think if people were always killed for being a jerk then we wouldn't have any jerks around. It would be a hell of an inducement to civil behavior. Seeing as how civil behavior is extremely lacking these days - maybe we should have "death to jerks"...

Oh come on, just about everybody has done something really boneheaded at least once in their life. I'm sure there are exceptions, but they are probably rare.

As a teen I once went snow-mobilling with a ditzy broad. When it was her turn to drive (we shared one mobile together), she was a complete maniac, blindly jumping wide creeks and all kinds of foolish stuff. One head told me to go the hell home, but the *other* head was hypnotized by beauty.

A cartoon about the tiger escape...

[di'jital]

A funny cartoon on this subject, with a point to ponder about the way it was handled by the media and the officials there: ahref=http://fridayreflections.typepad.com/weblog/2008/01/tiger-escapes-a.htmlrel=url2html-14940http://fridayreflections.typepad.com/weblog/2008/01/tiger-escapes-a.html>

Re:the tiger had superior knowledge of the situati

[Gordonjcp]

here will be jackasses who would like to taunt said cats

There you have hit the nail on the head. It's a cat. If you wind up a cat, you will get bitten. If you wind up a cat that's big enough to actually eat you, you will get eaten.

This is stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

FIrst of all, the tiger can walk right up to the 12.5 foot barrier. See http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/c/a/2008/01/04/MNCHU8QPS.DTL&o=2

Next, they quote that a tiger can achieve a speed of up to 35 miles per hour, and that because their calculated initial velocity at a launch angle of 55 degrees was below this, it can be concluded that the tiger could get over the fence. Tigers are not projectiles that can be launched at any angle at any velocity. Maybe they can run horizontally (along the x-axis for the intellectual types) at 35 mph, but they can't leap vertically (along the z-axis) at 35 mph. The maximum horizontal velocity is not the same as the maximum vertical velocity. If that was the case, they barrier would have to be 42 feet high in order to prevent the tiger from jumping straight up and climbing over the top.

Tigers in the wild have been observed to jump up to 16 feet high in the wild. You build enclosures to account for this. It isn't rocket science.

Maybe you

[ArchieBunker]

Maybe you had the urge to taunt dangerous animals but I never did. If you feel like killing something then go hunting. I nominate the guy who died for a Darwin Award. Its a tiger, anything smaller and less powerful than it is food.

Parent +5 Informative

[jfuredy]

If you look at the link the parent posted ( http://www.sfgate.com/c/pictures/2008/01/03/mn_grotto.jpg ) you can clearly see that the situation shown in the picture is vastly different from what the calculations looked at. Based on what is shown in the picture this was essentially a running long jump for the tiger. There was virtually no elevation involved, especially when you consider that she could easily pull herself up over the top if she was a couple of feet short. That diagram is very enlightening.

A better title?

[Mathness]

Wouldn't "Crunching Physicist, Hidden Trajectory" have been a more fitting title? :p

Projectile motion

[AlpineR]

Clearing a 12.5 ft barrier at 33 ft away just didn't feel intuitively possible, so I found a projectile physics toy to test it:

Projectile Motion

In SI, the values are 12 m/s at an angle of 55 degrees with a mass of 160 kg, clearing a 3.8 m barrier at 10 m away.

I had some recollection that 45 degrees was the optimum launch angle, but apparently that maximizes distance, not height. Mass doesn't factor into the calculations unless you include air resistance, which the paper neglects.

The surprisingly sensitive factor is launch velocity. Lose 1 m/s and you smack into the middle of the wall. Gain 1 m/s and clear a 16 ft barrier, landing 52 ft away. It still seems phenomenal to actually get a tiger's horizontal velocity redirected at 55 degrees.

A better answer would be...

[Kinthelt]

Depends upon how hard you throw it!

Not a valid public/private test case

[hey!]

Well, we are in the realm of a the speculative here, since we are talking about things that might have happened if things were contrary to how they actually are.

However the current management of the zoo has everything to do with the height of the wall, even though the wall was built before the management took charge, because the wall was built before safety standards were established.

If the safety standards were established after the current management took charge, the older management was to blame; if it took place after the current management took charge, then both the current management and the old management are to blame, because the incoming management should have checked everything before taking over. One way or the other, the current management is "at fault" here. The old management might not have been at fault, if it were not known that tigers could clear such a wall at the time.

In any case, this is not really a valid test case for privatization, because the zoo is run as a partnership between the SF Parks department and the non-profit SF Zoological Society. It is the difference between non-profit and for-profit here that is critical, not the difference between government and private.

A well run non-profit should make the decision to evaluate the safety of its exhibits and address any problems in exactly the same way a well run government institution would. Either should determine whether the exhibits meet standards of safety and either correct any deficiencies, or close the exhibit. A well run for-profit would look at the decision in a risk/benefit context.

In fact, a well run for-profit takes these uncertainties and makes them quantifiable by buying insurance. If the insurance company misses the problem with the tiger enclosure, that's all to the good: the company gets a windfall savings. If the insurance company catches the problem, then you've got a simple NPV calculation between the investment and the premium differential. Either way, you plug the numbers into a spreadsheet, and if the spreadsheet says you go on with an unsafe exhibit, you do.

So, net net net, as they say, you can't conclude anything about the difference between private and public management by this event. You can conclude something about this management, which is that in this case at least it didn't do its job. If this were a private, for profit company they might well have been managing "properly", by concluding the wall was "probably" safe, and the cost of fixing the situation was higher than the probable benefit.

Change of Expression

[Tablizer]

I think I'd just about give a week's pay to see the expression change on the taunter's face the very moment he realized that the fence was an insufficient barrier.

The rapist probably knew better.

[Lilith's Heart-shape]

It's a bit like blaming the rape victim for wearing a short skirt. Bullshit. A tiger is not a human being. Human beings are supposed to know the difference between right and wrong, and most of us know that rape is wrong. Do you honestly think a tiger is going to think, "Oh, dear, I know that stupid human is teasing me, but it's not right to jump the barrier and rip his throat out." No, the tiger is going to think of one thing when she sees a stupid human teasing her: "CHOW TIME!!"

Lesson Learned:

[snowful]

Only taunt those who are weaker and less aggressive than you.

Distance

[simpl3x]

I worked at a zoo in Chicago, and the Siberian Tigers were a concern. The distance between the habitat and the rest of us, seemed fine, would probably stand up to calculations, but never quite seemed enough for an animal bent on escape. When the things arrived at the zoo, I was photographing them, and the shear power of the roar was simply amazing. Standing outside of a steel box with the things in them didn't diminish the fact that they were there.

One night I was watching some European wolves pace around there cage, when one caught my eye. Eye contact bad! It walked slowly down the exhibit and launched at the wall hitting the top. I left quickly... The Mexican wolves were rumored to escape often.

People want to see the animals, and like everything else in this world it is a balance of risks. It's bad enough that the animals appear so sedate, but compound that with a realistic safe distance, and it would be a recipe for disaster. There was a reason they used bars back in the day.

Deserved?

[Anonymous Coward]

Only if you consider stupidity and lack of common sense as reasons for 'deserving' death.

I've seen housecats open their owners like Christmas presents.
I find it almost impossible to feel sorry for someone messing with a cat that was larger than himself.

The Calvin method

[jbeaupre]

Unfortunately, this zoo used the method described by Calvin's dad for testing bridges. The would build a barrier, then have some guy taunt a tiger. If he got eaten, they'd make a larger barrier. Repeat until the guy survived and you have a good standard standard. This zoo decided to measure the last enclosure the tiger ate the guy at and build that one. Slight algorithm error.

Re:the tiger had superior knowledge of the situati

[Anonymous Coward]

I seriously doubt any cat you have could jump 6 feet up and 15 feet across the room. That's a hell of a jump.

Just think about how far 30 feet is and how high 12 feet is. That's taller than a single story of a house and about as long as a normal house is wide. That's insane.

Don't need the math

[boudie2]

Over the years, I've seen more than one house cat who could jump onto the top of a refrigerator. No run across the room, just wiggle their butt and boom! If a plain old cat can do that, jump on top of an average fridge close to 6 feet high, a 350 pound tiger should have no problem jumping out of it's enclosure. Mark Twain said "A man who carries a cat by the tail is getting experience that will always be helpful. He isn't likely to grow dim or doubtful. Chances are, he isn't likely to carry the cat that way again, either. But if he wants to, I say let him!". I'd say neither of those two attacked will be trying that again (one for sure).

We had a long discussion about this in torts..

[ChePibe]

We talked about this problem at length a while back in torts.

Basically, the subject here is one of civil liability. The kids - all under the age of 18 - all had alcohol and marijuana in their bloodstream at the time of the incident (according to police reports). Their alleged taunting could be used against them, not to completely excuse the zoo from guilt (although they'll try), but to reduce the damages. Generally speaking as to torts, a jury can find a defendant partially liable for their own injuries.

I don't think there's too much question here as to the zoo's liability - they failed to build a wall capable of keeping the tiger in, and failed to keep their team of snipers (as per their own emergency plan) on the zoo during all times it was open. But, the zoo will pen its hopes on the theory above, arguing that the kids are at least partially liable. They do have a point - this tiger has certainly faced taunting in the past, and no results like this occurred. But the case for the kids, I think, is a much better. one.

The zoo knows it's trying to shoot the moon by removing full liability from itself, but they could have a reasonable shot at reducing the damages if it goes to court.

Re:the tiger had superior knowledge of the situati

[Anonymous Coward]

Taunting a tiger is a bit like running down the street screaming the N word in Harlem

I'm black. So you are saying it's relatively safe for me to taunt a tiger?

Here's the video

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/1057544/tatiana_the_tiger/

Easy!

[Punto]

Easy, just imagine the tiger is a perfect sphere with no friction...

The tiger didn't clear the wall

[Guysmiley777]

The autopsy done on the tiger showed shattered and broken claws from scrambling over the concrete. The tiger didn't just do some anime style super-leap, she got claws on the edge and pulled herself up, shattering claws in the process. This was not a happy tiger that these 3 douchebags happened to get caught by. She was pissed off and looking to confront her tormentors.

Oh noes! My Ideology is being challenged!

[spun]

I'm saying the tiger escape is part of a pattern that has occurred ever since the zoo was privatized. It's the tragedy of privatization: people can simply run a business or resource into the ground, take the profits and invest them in the next looting spree. With publicly owned resources, people all share the resource and want it to last because they enjoy it. Private ownership encourages fraud, short sighted cost cutting, and externalizing every expense you can.

Back when the zoo was built, no one knew the enclosure height was a problem. Now, with a private, profit driven entity controlling the zoo, you might think they have an incentive to avoid lawsuits. But what they really have an incentive to do is profit, and if that means letting people die because lawsuits are cheaper than building a replacement enclosure, then so be it. With a public zoo like we have here in Albuquerque, they are more worried about educating the public, conserving species diversity, and yes, their image, than they are about making money.

Sorry to challenge your free market ideology like that, but privatization sucks because profit over everything as a motive sucks. Modern economic research shows that most non-sociopaths are driven more by ideals of fairness and reciprocity than personal gain, so they will not try to profit over all else. What our system actually does is encourage sociopaths.

Re:Oh noes! My Ideology is being challenged!

[jadavis]

I'm saying the tiger escape is part of a pattern that has occurred ever since the zoo was privatized.

Part of what pattern, precisely? The cause of the tiger escape was that the wall was too short (primary cause), and that no safety audit ever caught the violation (secondary cause). I challenge you to state the pattern you're referring to in such a way that:
  (a) the pattern is responsible for one of the aforementioned causes of the tiger escape; and
  (b) the pattern includes private ownership; and
  (c) the pattern excludes public ownership

The building of the wall was clearly not the fault of private ownership. The safety audits are equally guilty under public and private ownership.

Even if your criticisms of the free market are accurate, this tiger escape is not a good example of that, at all. The exact same dangers existed under public ownership; in fact, the primary cause (building of a tiger enclosure that violated accepted rules of safety) occurred under public ownership.

You aren't helping your cause by assertively displaying your tenuous grasp on logic.

Re:Oh noes! My Ideology is being challenged!

[spun]

I'm not saying that privatization caused the tiger escape. I'm saying the SF Zoo has sucked since it was privatized, and this is yet another example of them screwing up. They should have known the enclosure was faulty, it doesn't meet recommendations. The fact that the inspectors signed off on it is a little suspicious since it clearly violates the guidelines.

My grasp of logic is fine, your reading comprehension skills need work. But thanks for attempting to help me help "my cause."

Re:Oh noes! My Ideology is being challenged!

[jadavis]

I'm not saying that privatization caused the tiger escape.

So how is the tiger attack "an example of the tragedy of privatization"?

The definition of "example" is: "one (as an item or incident) that is representative of all of a group or type" ( http://www.m-w.com/ ). Other similar definitions involve words like "pattern" or "rule".

So, if the tiger attack is "an example of the tragedy of privatization", then the tiger attack needs to fit into some group, type, rule or pattern such that it excludes public ownership, but includes private ownership.

You said previously "the tiger escape is part of a pattern", but you have yet to define this pattern (even though I asked very specifically).

is yet another example of them screwing up

It is at least as much of an example of the publicly owned zoo screwing up. It's purely by chance that the attack happened when the zoo was under private ownership. In fact, it appears to be more of an example of the publicly owned zoo screwing up, since they built the wall in violation to begin with.

The fact that the inspectors signed off on it is a little suspicious since it clearly violates the guidelines.

It is suspicious, but you haven't presented any reason this is unique to the time it was under private ownership.

Re:Oh noes! My Ideology is being challenged!

[spun]

Sorry if I wasn't clear. I meant the SF Zoo was the example. Not the tiger attack in particular, but the entire pattern of fraud and neglect. Specifically: not putting money into upgrading older exhibits, firing experienced animal handlers and hiring cheaper replacements, forcing the city to pay for workman's comp and then forcing employees to engage in dangerous tasks resulting in injuries on the job, and not buying enough animal feed so the handlers had to (for instance) steal eucalyptus branches for the koalas. That's all I can remember from the articles I read, it was a while ago.

Re:Oh noes! My Ideology is being challenged!

[jadavis]

Sorry if I wasn't clear. I meant the SF Zoo was the example.

Fair enough.

Observations on "Domestic Long Hair" cat

[lotho brandybuck]

We manage a feral cat colony.. part of this was getting them all fixed. Most were done by the Feral Cat Coalition, these people know how to handle ferals... you anethetize them in their traps. A few we took to local vets.

So we finnaly trap our last kitty.. Big Black Cat. Take him to the corner vet in the trap.. we ask the kids there (the vet was gone so surgery was sched for the next day.) if they could deal with Ferals, they said "yeah, they talked with somebody" I suggested they just keep the trap overnight.

They go to transfer BBC into one of their holding kennels. Well, kitty had other plans. That cat was jumping from the floor, bouncing off the ceiling tiles of an 8 foot ceiling. Hid under a cabinet all nite long.

15 pound cat = 8 feet. 300 pound tiger = ???

Re:Observations on "Domestic Long Hair" cat

[statemachine]

That's nothing. I knew a housecat that could calmly (from a standstill), scale a 10ft concrete wall by jumping. No provocation. It only wanted to go a neighbor's yard without walking around the wall and climbing a chain link fence. At first I didn't believe it, but then I saw it a few more times.

And coincidentally, this was also a black cat. :)

Yes it is just speculation.

[pavon]

In 2005, the AZA delayed accreditation of the SF zoo, due to many cases of poor animal treatment. The documented results of the AZA inspections were available to the press. If there was anything in those documents about the cage height being inadequate, it would be all over the news after the attack. Both the AZA and the SF zoo have said that the cage height did not come up in their inspection, and it certainly did not make it into their reports. I find it very unlikely that it was mentioned in private and then swept under the table, when so many other complaints were made in the open.

You just hate it when anyone points out where privatization goes bad, don't you? No, I don't. I'm a big fan of market economics, but I've yet to see any significant advantages that corporate monopolies have over government monopolies, which is what most privatization efforts are. It just annoys the hell out of me when people get stuck on some pet issue and have to bring it into every discussion, or pick some bad guy and then blame everything on them even when the evidence doesn't support it. Especially when there are other legitimate reasons to criticize them.

Re:Yes it is just speculation.

[spun]

I see the tiger attack as part of a pattern of abuse, neglect, fraud and theft that has been ongoing since the new firm took over zoo management. It's hardly a pet issue.

They DID NOT have slingshots.

[statemachine]

The zoo director has been making false statements from the beginning, and using his influence to get the city of SF involved.

1) This is the same tiger (Tatiana) that attacked and seriously injured a zookeeper (Lori Komejan) who was only doing her job just one year ago. The zoo initially blamed the attack on the zoo keeper.
From a later article:

On Dec. 22 of last year, 300-pound Tatiana severely injured keeper Lori Komejan inside the Lion House, "degloving" her arm, as the state's workplace safety report put it. That agency, Cal/OSHA blamed the zoo, citing defects that the zoo knew about but hadn't fixed, and imposed an $18,000 penalty.

2) Zoo director Manuel Mollinedo is incompetent and demoralizing:

"It would appear that his management style - which downplays the value of staff and the welfare of animals - remains in place," said a former worker from the Los Angeles Zoo.

A departed San Francisco Zoo manager concurred.

"It's a top-down mentality that the zoo has adopted," he said. "And I think it's very dangerous."

Since Mollinedo took over, there has been a steady exodus of employees, including the deputy director, education director, two successive public relations managers, development director, curator of birds, marketing manager, events director, human resources manager, general manager of concessions and a number of veteran keepers.

3) The zookeepers knew the wall was too low:

But escaping from an enclosure at the zoo is not beyond the ability of a Siberian tiger, according to a retired longtime keeper and other zoo veterans interviewed by The Chronicle. And many people who worked at the zoo knew it, the keeper said.

4) The police didn't find any slingshots in the cars or on the brothers, anything unusual on their cellphones, foreign objects in the enclosure, or any witnesses to back up any suggestion of taunting, and suspended the investigation.

You can find more articles in the special section that SFGate has just for the tiger mauling.

But people will believe whatever they want to believe, right?

Re:They DID NOT have slingshots.

[Tanuki64]

1) This is the same tiger (Tatiana) that attacked and seriously injured a zookeeper (Lori Komejan) who was only doing her job just one year ago. The zoo initially blamed the attack on the zoo keeper.

And in this case the zoo is right. It is the zookeepers job, so he has to know the involved dangers. I once talked with a person in a zoo responsible for the big cats. Every one of the zookeepers, which are responsible for feeding and tending the big cats know that they are hated by the cats. Has something to do with hierarchy. They feed the cats, they tell them when to leave the cage and when to enter it, so the zookeepers are the alpha males. The cats don't want to accept this without a proper fight, but are not allowed to fight. The zookeeper told me that a normal person entering the cage would be in severe danger, but on a lucky day when the cats are well fed, might be ignored. Should he enter the cage, the cats would attack him immediately and tear him to threads.

Re:They DID NOT have slingshots.

[statemachine]

Did you just read that one line line and stop? Cal/OSHA found the zoo at fault, not the zookeeper.

That agency, Cal/OSHA blamed the zoo, citing defects that the zoo knew about but hadn't fixed, and imposed an $18,000 penalty.

Here's from the initial article. If the cage was built properly, Tatiana would not have been able to stick her paws through the bars and grab the zookeeper.

Once the keeper puts the meat in the device, the door on the keeper's side closes, and another on the tiger's side opens. That way, there is no danger of the big cat touching the keeper.

All went well during the feeding, Jenkins said. However, a few minutes after Tatiana was fed, she somehow managed to get her paws on Komejan's forearms. It's not clear whether Tatiana thrust her paws through the bars, which are a few inches apart, or whether the feeder's hands were close enough to the bars for Tatiana to grab them.

From an article last month (emphasis mine):

Louis Dorfman, an animal behaviorist with the International Exotic Feline Sanctuary in Boyd, Texas, agreed that Tatiana posed no greater danger than she had before Dec. 22, 2006 - when she reached under the bars of her cage and seized the arms of zoo employee Lori Komejan as dozens of people watched.

The feeding enclosure was not designed and/or built properly. This was not Lori Komejan's fault. Lori was properly doing her job.

Re:They DID NOT have slingshots.

[Tanuki64]

I read it, but I disagree. There is no such thing as a 100% fool proof system. When a tiger is able to injure a zookeeper, the zookeeper was careless. Period. In many German zoos there are tiger cages, where the same thing might happen. A tiger or another big cat might reach through the bars. Therefore there are fences, which prevent visitors to get too close to the cages. Of course zoo employees can go behind those fences, but they should know what they are doing and pay attention to the cats. So yes, without knowing details I claim it was Lori Komejan's own fault, he was careless.

What the Cal/OSHA finds, or what penalties are paid is, when it comes to decide about who is to blame for something, in America even more irrelevant than anywhere else.

Re:They DID NOT have slingshots.

[fluffy99]

Okay, but you're ignoring a few key points which can also be found on the SFGate link you provided. - The dead guy was legally drunk and had been smoking pot according to the coroners report. - They have an eye witness, saying they were harrasing the lions shortly before the escape. - Oh, and they did find minor foreign objects in the enclosure such normally would not be there. - One of them told the father of the dead guy that they were teasing and climbing on the railing, but didn't throw anything. - The foot print on the railing. - They had prior incidents of being drunking & disorderly, including assaulting a cop. I think it's safe to assume that they were hollering and teasing the tiger, but debateable on whether they threw anything at her. Either way, these guy were not the upstanding pillar of society that they claim to be. In my opinion, they brought this on themselves and learned the hard way about the consequences of acting like an ass. I've have just as much sympathy if they went to a back alley and harrassed a drug dealer and got themselves shot.

Re:They DID NOT have slingshots.

[statemachine]

You're obviously not reading anything past the first line of my messages. The zookeeper followed protocol. Cal/OSHA said the feeding cage was improperly designed and that the ZOO (meaning the director and others in charge) KNEW about this and did nothing to correct to flaw and protect Lori.

Also by reading the articles, AND just by reading my messages, you would know to STOP saying "he" in referring to Lori, who is a woman.

You're just not giving me anything positive to say about you, as you clearly are not reading anything that would torpedo your argument. That's called willful ignorance, and it is not a quality that is becoming of a decent human being.

Re:They DID NOT have slingshots.

[statemachine]

Then you didn't read the later articles. That "witness" was fabricated by the zoo director. The police did not find any witnesses. They did not find any evidence of them climbing on or over the railing, and they certainly didn't find any foreign objects in the exhibit. These were all claims by the zoo director that he had no evidence for.

The police stopped investigating because even with the search of the impounded car and the cellphones and the zoo premises, no evidence of wrongdoing or even taunting (by standing on the fence, hollering, etc.) ever, ever showed up.

The enclosure was too short, and the zoo *knew* that. Tatiana, the tiger, had a history of aggressiveness and mauling without provocation. Anything else is just speculation.

You want speculation? The boys probably just had eye contact with this aggressive tiger, who took it as a challenge. Having had little to no punishment from attacking before, she leapt out of the undersized enclosure and took on the closest one.

I've seen housecats scale 10ft concrete walls with no problem -- why would one think 12ft is enough for a 350lb all-muscle tiger? Its reach from tiptoes to forepaws is likely already over 10ft. This is the zoo's fault for creating a dangerous situation by putting an overly-aggressive cat in too small of an enclosure.

Re:They DID NOT have slingshots.

[Tanuki64]

The zookeeper followed protocol.

Perhaps he (or she) should have followed common sense. I really don't see how wrong such a feeding cage can be designed that a normal attentive person is in any danger. The tiger was able to reach under the bars? So what? It's a tiger and not Mr. Fantastic. It has a limited reach. How are zookeeper in America trained? Picked randomly from the streets, given a fancy hat and told 'feed the tiger'? Fine, then you are right, the cage was inadequate. I always thought zookeeper had a very good knowledge of the animals they are keeping. Knew which one of their animals are dangerous, were able to read their moods, and knew how to stay out of reach.

..and that the ZOO (meaning the director and others in charge) KNEW about this and did nothing to correct to flaw and protect Lori.

Again, knew what? That the tiger was able to reach through the bars? So what? He was also able to piss through the bar*, he would have been even if the bars were much closer. I bet if this happened once to Lori, she would have paid attention and miraculously been able to avoid a second tiger shower.

Also by reading the articles, AND just by reading my messages, you would know to STOP saying "he" in referring to Lori, who is a woman.

Irrelevant.

You're just not giving me anything positive to say about you, as you clearly are not reading anything that would torpedo your argument. That's called willful ignorance, and it is not a quality that is becoming of a decent human being.

If you say so. I don't care. But I do care for those overprotective mommies who can't accept that accidents happen. They disgust me. And I am also disgusted by those who think that of course it is never the fault of the victim of the accident that the accident happened, but always the fault of some far away or faceless 'entity', which should have looked at least three years into the future and foreseen what could happen and prevented even the tiniest probability of even the slightest accident. Even if a minimum of commons sense could have prevented the accident.

*Tiger sometimes do this.

Re:They DID NOT have slingshots.

[statemachine]

What part of "the cage was not designed and/or built properly" do you not understand?

Re:They DID NOT have slingshots.

[Tanuki64]

And what part of 'I don't care' do you not understand?
a) A tiger stands free directly before me -> I am toast.
b) A tiger is in a cage, which does not even allow to stick a whisker between the bars. -> I am safe.
c) A tiger is in a cage and can claw through the bars. -> I am still safe, since I have the brains to stay out of reach.

When now some organization says that cage c) is improperly built, I don't care. I use my own judgment. I don't need an organization, which tells me what is right or wrong or properly or improperly built.

Re:They DID NOT have slingshots.

[statemachine]

Then you are agreeing with me that this tiger is capable of attacking without provocation.

Re:They DID NOT have slingshots.

[Tanuki64]

I never said something about that tiger. I never even joined one of the discussions about taunting or not. I wasn't there, so I cannot know what happened. But provocation or not wasn't what were 'talking' about. Furthermore when we only talk about the zookeeper accident, I can assure you that the tiger is capable of attacking without provocation.

As I wrote in another thread I once attended a guided tour through a zoo. I was able to talk with a zookeeper a bit. When we came to the big cats he told me that those cats really hate their keepers. It is a hierarchy thing. The keeper feeds the cats = tells them when and how much to eat, makes then enter and leave their cages, i.e. acts like the alpha male of the group. But he did not earn this place in a proper fight, so the cats won't accept them. He told me that when normal visitors come close to the bulletproof glass of the cages, nothing happens. The cats usually ignore visitors. When he comes close the the glass, the cats jump at the class, try to bite and claw at it. But all keepers know this. They know that when the cats get the slightest opportunity to kill them, they attack. I doubt this different is in any American zoo. So again my opinion, if it is not a material or design defect, which causes the cage door unpredictably to open, it is the keepers own fault when he 'allows' to a tiger to claw him through or under the bars.

Re:They DID NOT have slingshots.

[Chris Burke]

Then you are agreeing with me that this tiger is capable of attacking without provocation.

No, because as he quite correctly pointed out much earlier, the tiger-handler relationship inherently involves a degree of "provocation".

That wasn't a case of the tiger taking a swipe at some random person, it took a swipe at her.

Just like this wasn't a case of the tiger escaping its enclosure on a whim and attacking a random person, it attacked the jackasses who were tormenting it. Nobody else.

I do think the zoo seriously dropped the ball on this one. However neither of these incidents in any way show that the tiger was prone to "unprovoked" attacks, and thus should have been considered an escape risk.

Re:They DID NOT have slingshots.

[statemachine]

Just like this wasn't a case of the tiger escaping its enclosure on a whim and attacking a random person, it attacked the jackasses who were tormenting it. Nobody else.

Oh cool! Another person who has proof the boys were taunting the tiger! Boy oh boy, the SFPD would love to see your evidence.

No, because as he quite correctly pointed out much earlier, the tiger-handler relationship inherently involves a degree of "provocation".
So, feeding it is a degree of provocation? What kind of dark world do you come from? If a tiger is provoked by a feeding, then maybe standing there and looking the tiger in the eyes is a degree of provocation?

However neither of these incidents in any way show that the tiger was prone to "unprovoked" attacks, and thus should have been considered an escape risk.
Again, this shows that you live in a very dark world. A tiger that is known for attacking people (and not for self-defense), and an enclosure wall that is known to be too short is a common-sense recipe for disaster. (ding!) Oh hey! It happened. The cat attacked one person and wasn't punished. Who in their right mind would think the mental barrier for attacking again isn't lowered?

The zoo not only dropped the ball, they were negligent AND acted in bad faith by not helping and immediately spreading lies. In court, it will only be a question of will the zoo need to go into bankruptcy or not to pay off the actual and punitive damages.

Re:They DID NOT have slingshots.

[Chris Burke]

Oh cool! Another person who has proof the boys were taunting the tiger! Boy oh boy, the SFPD would love to see your evidence.

My proof is that the tiger attacked them and only them, tracking two of them hundreds of yards past plenty of other zoo visitors to attack only them, and not any of the literally hundreds of thousands of other visitors who have been to the tiger's cage.

SFPD would love to see some evidence because despite taunting having almost certainly occurred, they don't have the physical evidence to stand up in a court of law, and thus must (and should) let them go. So the survivors finally got their story straight, and were smart enough to either not video themselves in the first place or delete the video later, and since SFPD can't prove they are lying, they have no choice but to let them go. They hate having to let people they think are guilty go. So yes, I'm sure they'd love to see evidence.

Clearly this means they were innocent. So why did the tiger choose them, and only them, to attack? If it was random aggression, why was the target not random?

So, feeding it is a degree of provocation?

If you understood anything at all about animal behavior, you would know that it is. Feeding is about food control. In the wild, the one who gives food, who decides how much and when, is dominant, and the one who receives food is submissive. And in the wild, how do you think such dominance is challenged?

This isn't a puppy dog, it's a tiger. A naturally solitary, self-sufficient apex predator who does not like to be submissive to anyone. Any tiger keeper should know this, and any tiger keeper who forgets this and lets the tiger swipe at them screwed up.

If a tiger is provoked by a feeding, then maybe standing there and looking the tiger in the eyes is a degree of provocation?

If you are close enough to be literally looking the tiger in the eye (i.e. within its enclosure) then you damn well for your own sorry ass better believe that's a provocation. I mean, did you really have to ask this?

Again, this shows that you live in a very dark world. A tiger that is known for attacking people (and not for self-defense), and an enclosure wall that is known to be too short is a common-sense recipe for disaster.

It's a tiger, not a person! It doesn't have to be "self-defense" for it to be perfectly normal tiger behavior, not a sign that the tiger will attack randomly and without provocation. A tiger that would take a swipe at a handler is not any kind of surprise at all, it's just a tiger like any other.

Oh hey! It happened. The cat attacked one person and wasn't punished. Who in their right mind would think the mental barrier for attacking again isn't lowered?

People who know things about animals. Even mentioning punishing the tiger shows that this is not you.

You live in a world that is dark with ignorance.

Re:They DID NOT have slingshots.

[statemachine]

One can be standing 30 yards away and still look someone or something directly in the eyes. Your vision must not be that great.

And here's a picture of just how close you can get. You can see right into the tiger's eyes, and that's from some crappy camera back a ways from the fence.

I'm not going to say or even imply (like you have) that I understand all wild animal behavior, but I understand cats and feral cats. All other observations of big cats (like tigers) seem to fit right in with my understanding -- except when they "play" you're not just going to suffer an annoying claw scrape.

You don't stare down ANY wild animal -- hell, any domestic animal -- unless you're willing to back it up with force. Since we don't have any evidence of the boys doing anything other than watching the tigers, I'm inclined to believe they simply stared right back. Unfortunately, Tatiana was not too amused that day and simply jumped across the moat, or up the wall.

My proof is that the tiger attacked them and only them
People who know things about animals. Even mentioning punishing the tiger shows that this is not you.
You know less than you think you do. My proof is your so-called "proof."

Your assertion about predators normally just picking people at random shows you have little understanding of just how a predator works. It doesn't charge in willy-nilly and maul the closest person. It selects its target(s), stalks, and picks them off. It's a much more efficient strategy than simply going after the closest, because that one could also be stronger and faster.

I am not sure about these boys' body sizes, but they didn't look fat. Likely, they were around 5'6" and extremely skinny, as most boys are around their ages. A tiger who has mauled someone before might not even think twice about human prey of this size.

We can go back and forth about what you and I *think*. But we know very little except this:

1) No evidence of taunting. No witnesses. No confessions. No weapons. No nothing.

2) Tatiana has mauled before.

3) The tiger enclosure was known by zoo officials to be too short and nothing was done.

4) The same zoo officials ignored the known defective cage that allowed the mauling a year prior.

5) Zoo employees, security, and officials did not respond right away, and even refused help at one point.

Be careful of unfounded accusations. Without proof, they are libel. If you are not an animal expert, and you weren't there, you should not be saying such things against the boys. I'm sure the zoo director makes a better lawsuit target for libel and slander, but you never know...

Cite your sources if you know otherwise.

Re:They DID NOT have slingshots.

[fluffy99]

Which article says the witness was fabricated by the zoo director? I suppose it is possible that Jennifer Miller is lying to the police and the paper. The police stopped the investigation for political reasons, and the simple fact that they had no direct evidence of a crime being committed (taunting isn't a crime) and had nothing else they could legally look at. Still, all of the circumstantial evidence points to them provoking the tiger.

Everyone is eager to say they were taunting the tiger. Certainly the media like the sensationalism. The city and the zoo are busy trying to cover their collective butts from the inevitable lawsuit. The taunting question aside, I agree that the enclosure was not adequate to contain a pissed off tiger and the zoo needs to answer for that.

Re:They DID NOT have slingshots.

[Chris Burke]

One can be standing 30 yards away and still look someone or something directly in the eyes. Your vision must not be that great.

There's more too it than just distance, and that's why I said "in their enclosure". If there wasn't, this and many other tigers would have attacked people long before. So what are you even saying here? I do think it's funny though that in your picture that "proves" this, you can't in fact see the tiger's eyes.

I'm not going to say or even imply (like you have) that I understand all wild animal behavior, but I understand cats and feral cats.

No, you don't, because you don't comprehend how controlling a predator's food supply could make them not like you. You think that means I "live in a very dark world". So really, don't even try to make this laughable statement again.

Your assertion about predators normally just picking people at random shows you have little understanding of just how a predator works. It doesn't charge in willy-nilly and maul the closest person. It selects its target(s), stalks, and picks them off. It's a much more efficient strategy than simply going after the closest, because that one could also be stronger and faster.

You don't understand what I was saying at all -- big surprise. I'm saying, of all the hundreds of thousands of visitors who visited the tiger's enclosure, of all the ones who looked right at the tiger, made noises or whatever, the tiger attacked only these three. Nobody else. Not once. Even though it clearly could, it never even tried to escape. Something must have made it want to, and it wasn't hunger, it was anger.

Based on your incomprehension of the relationship between food and dominance, you want to portray this tiger as a likely man-killer who attacks without provocation. Well the facts simply disagree. The tiger had ample opportunity to attack, if it was going to go off over nothing then it would have already. The fact is that the tiger had never before attacked without provocation, and it's nigh inconceivable that it did this time.

A tiger who has mauled someone before might not even think twice about human prey of this size.

A tiger who is a man-killer would not think twice about any human prey. Do you have any idea of what kind of prey a tiger can bring down in the wild? The only thing that stops a tiger from being a man-eater is that it doesn't associate humans with prey. But having taken a swipe at a handler does not create a human-food relationship in the tiger. The whole point is that the tiger is reacting to the handler as though they were another tiger who is exerting dominance over them. It's a social relationship, not predator-prey, and thus does not in fact make the tiger more likely to attack other random humans.

But since you don't understand that, try asking yourself this: If the tiger wouldn't think twice about attacking three 5'6" adults, what about all the "prey" of lesser size that traipsed before it for so many years? What you honestly think no child ever walked unattended up to the tiger's enclosure and stared at it? No ten year old ever hopped the fence to get a closer look? This animal has had so much opportunity to attack if it was going to that it's ridiculous, the very fact that it hadn't shows that it was not likely to.

But we know very little except this:

1) No evidence of taunting. No witnesses. No confessions. No weapons. No nothing.

We also know they made conflicting statements. But it's not illegal to change your story unless you're under oath.

In the meantime, OJ is still searching for the real killers. *smirk*

2) Tatiana has mauled before.

We know Tatiana had mauled before in a situation in which it is perfectly understandable. You're deliberately using an absence of context and understanding of animal behavior to make this seem like more than it was.

Well maybe you know very little

Dry Moat - Just Jump Up!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm amazed no one seems to be pointing out that the "moat" that makes up the need for the 10m horizontal component of this calculation was, is, and has always been DRY - EMPTY - WITHOUT WATER! What the flamin' hoohaa is the point of a dry moat? The damn cat just ran up to the edge and jumped up.

I'm a doughy 6ft tall middle-aged guy, and I can jump up and grab the 10ft high basketball hoop at the local YMCA. I gotta believe a cat that stands roughly that tall on its hind legs could jump 2 ft higher and scramble up the side...

Well it seems to work pretty damn well!

[Chris Burke]

Just another variation on "the world is under my control, as long as I don't do thing X".

Yeah well that philosophy seemed to have worked for the thousands upon thousands of daily visitors over the course of decades who refrained from viciously taunting an apex predator!

This is a case of the world NOT being in your control. The Tiger escaped. It wasn't supposed to be able to. Do you think going to a Zoo is supposed to be a "risky" thing to do? I don't.. but hey, maybe it is.

You can make any activity "risky" through egregious stupidity. You probably think using a computer isn't very risky... until your drunken friends convince you to play "Headbutt the CRT".

Of course the enclosure should have been safer such that escape was impossible. It's obvious that thinking they were completely safe was the only reason these jackasses felt confident enough to taunt a tiger. Yet at the same time, the level of safety that was provided was sufficient for every other zoo-goer in the history of the exhibit, and without their actions, they would still be alive.

It's not as if the tiger escaped on a whim then attacked a random person who was minding their own business. It escaped from the enclosure because they infuriated it. It escaped from the enclosure because it wanted them. It was so pissed, it wanted them dead. Once it had escaped, it didn't run off, it didn't attack some other random zoo go-er. It wasn't hungry, it didn't stop to feast on its kill. It chased the two still-living people down hundreds of yards away from its enclosure past plenty of other zoo-goers, but it only wanted them, the source of its anger.

What happened was a direct consequence of their actions. They didn't need to control "the world", they only needed to control themselves. That's all the control they needed. "the world is under my control, as long as I don't do thing X" -- well THEY DID THING X and it was stupid and got them killed.

Talking about how this makes going to the zoo "risky", as if this is something that could have randomly happened to anyone, ignores this simple cause-and-effect relationship. And if you want to talk about "risk" as though you're doing statistical risk analysis, look at the actual numbers -- one attack in how many years, how many visitors? But of course any REAL risk analysis would divide the analysis based on risk FACTORS. Statistical risk to idiots who taunt tigers? HIGH. Statistical risk to non-idiots who don't taunt tigers? ZERO.

Re:Well it seems to work pretty damn well!

[Vellmont]

Yeah well that philosophy seemed to have worked for the thousands upon thousands of daily visitors over the course of decades who refrained from viciously taunting an apex predator!

You're trying to tell me that this is the first guy to be a jerk and taunt a tiger in a cage? I kinda doubt that.

To the rest of your argument, I guess we simply disagree about where responsibility lies.

Re:Well it seems to work pretty damn well!

[Chris Burke]

You're trying to tell me that this is the first guy to be a jerk and taunt a tiger in a cage? I kinda doubt that.

Not at all! Other certainly must have taunted it, and didn't get tiger mauled. These guys went ABOVE AND BEYOND the call of stupid, harassing the poor beast to an extent it never had been before. They must have spent a good bit of time deliberately trying to drive the creature mad, and hey look it worked!

Just HOW stupid does someone have to be before they become responsible for the consequences of their own stupid actions? If they had climbed into the enclosure and poked the tiger with a stick, would that be their fault? Or would responsibility solely lie with the zoo for not making an impassable fence? If they had cut through the fence with a cutting torch, would the zoo be responsible for not making a cutting-torch-proof enclosure?

To the rest of your argument, I guess we simply disagree about where responsibility lies.

Well we at least partly agree because you think the zoo is responsible, and so do I. The part we disagree on is whether the people were responsible, too. If you think blame is a zero-sum game and only one part can be responsible, then we disagree on the fundamental nature of blame. I can say the zoo is at fault for their faulty enclosure, AND that these people were at fault for harassing the tiger. Given that the enclosure has *always* been faulty but has never before resulted in an attack -- or, for that matter, an *attempted* attack -- that these guy's actions were a direct factor in causing the attack, and thus they must be considered at least partially responsible.

Like I said, the technique of "I will be safe if I don't do X" has demonstrably worked -- the only ones who ended up not-safe in the history of the zoo were the ones who did X. You can disagree with me on responsibility, but on this matter you are simply factually wrong.

Re:Well it seems to work pretty damn well!

[Bastard of Subhumani]

So if one asshat drives like an idiot and wraps himself in a tree, but another asshat drives like an idiot and gets away with it (this time), it's the tree's fault? Consider the unstated third case.

Very Interesting

[daniel422]

Am I the only one who finds it fascinating that the ONLY ones the tiger directly attacked were the 3 guys who were taunting it? That it specifically hunted down the 3 individuals who pissed it off? And they had moved away from the area...
Who says animals are stupid?

Re:Very Interesting

[Chris Burke]

Am I the only one who finds it fascinating that the ONLY ones the tiger directly attacked were the 3 guys who were taunting it? That it specifically hunted down the 3 individuals who pissed it off? And they had moved away from the area...

Nope, I find that very interesting too. It pretty much proves to me that this was their own stupid fault. This was not some random man-killing tiger who escaped on a whim and hunted a human. This thing was pissed, it was out for revenge, and there's no way it was going to those lengths just because it was mildly annoyed. Out of all the visitors to ever walk past the cage, these were the only ones to taunt it in any way? Not bloody likely. They must have gone above and beyond the call of stupid duty to provoke this attack.

Re:Very Interesting

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

That it specifically hunted down the 3 individuals who pissed it off?

Yes but it only got one. And the way these things work, that one guy was probably the one taunting it the least, who was misfortunate enough to socialise with one, or two, crueler, more sadistic and most likely more alert companions.

Unfortunately, not even tigers can sneak up on weasels.

Re:Very Interesting

[eefsee]

Yes, I found that interesting too. This article makes it even clearer that the tiger had to _work_ to get to these individuals. It's trajectory over the fence would have landed it well behind the victims of the attack. I'm sure there were other people around, but the tiger had to turn around and go for these three. Very clever tiger.

Re:Very Interesting

[wombert]

I find it a little unlikely that it specifically hunted them down, unless it was within a few minutes and they hadn't walked too far away. If domestic cats are any indication, the tiger would be willing to take its aggression on anyone, especially if the original instigator was out of sight. It seems more likely that they were the last ones near the cage, and the first ones she came across after escaping the enclosure. However, if a different set of visitors had been closer, she probably would have taken the first available victim.

Re:Very Interesting

[Chris Burke]

Well at the very least the one who was killed was the youngest of the three (ages 17, 19, and 23), and thus presumably the one most likely to go along with jackassery in order to fit in. Can't say whether that means he was the least sadistic or not, but it does in a way seem unfair.

Re:Very Interesting

[statemachine]

I don't. Animals who are hunting prey routinely focus on a few previously selected individuals as it makes a better hunting strategy than willy-nilly going after whatever's closer (but not necessarily weaker or slower).

There's also no evidence that this tiger was taunted by anything more than simply being looked at. This cat has a prior history of attacking without provocation. And, it was the fault of the zoo and not the zookeeper herself.

On Dec. 22 of last year, 300-pound Tatiana severely injured keeper Lori Komejan inside the Lion House, "degloving" her arm, as the state's workplace safety report put it. That agency, Cal/OSHA blamed the zoo, citing defects that the zoo knew about but hadn't fixed, and imposed an $18,000 penalty.

Re:Very Interesting

[period3]

I think they had a reasonable expectation that the tiger would not be able to escape its enclosure and rend them limb from limb.

If they got kicked out of the zoo or fined, that would be their fault - it's reasonable to expect such an outcome.

If anybody is at fault, it's the zoo for not designing proper enclosures, or enforcing some kind of don't-taunt-the-tigers-because-our-walls-are-too-low rule.

Re:Very Interesting

[Chris Burke]

I think they had a reasonable expectation that the tiger would not be able to escape its enclosure and rend them limb from limb.

Of course they did. That's the only reason they were confident enough to irritate a huge toothy predator. I'm sure that if there was no barrier at all they would have had to drink a lot more before thinking tiger-taunting was a good idea.

Which has happened, actually... at a zoo in Alaska some young adults got extremely drunk and decided it was a good idea to climb into the polar bear enclosure. Polar bears btw consider *anything* smaller than them, including other bears, to be potential food.

So while I think these guys are dumb, there are certainly dumber.


If anybody is at fault, it's the zoo for not designing proper enclosures, or enforcing some kind of don't-taunt-the-tigers-because-our-walls-are-too-low rule.

I reject outright the idea that only one party can be at fault, and that if one party was negligent then anyone else's behavior isn't their fault. Blame is not a zero-sum game.

The zoo is clearly at fault. Exactly how much we'll find out, but at the very least we know the enclosure didn't meet standards.

Yet these morons were also at fault. There shouldn't have to be a "because-our-walls-are-too-low" part of the "rule" that shouldn't even have to be stated or enforced.

Re:Very Interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice thought, but your housecat in no way compares to the caged tiger. Their senses are heightened, as most likely is their intelligence. They probably went by scent, they struck those who taunted them then retreated as was bared out by the events.

well....

[Anonymous Coward]

"you might think they have an incentive to avoid lawsuits."

We also might think that "might" is a pretty weak basis for an argument...

Obligatory

[Anonymous Coward]

I like turtles

Re:the tiger had superior knowledge of the situati

[Anonymous Coward]

What are you talking about? I've seen our (relatively large, but in europe wildcats+housecats are a continuum) house cats do that sort of leap (6 foot high, enough to smack you in the head or get on the curtain rail). Across a 15 foot room? Yeah, that too. If you have anything that to their tiny brains resembles a mouse/toy, they can be across in one bound.

They don't do it without reason, but they sure can with a little run up.

For that matter, humans can jump surprisingly high and far with training (yeah, even the white ones).

Preventing attacks is not the primary zoo failure

[cellocgw]

At the risk of sounding like a greentreepeacehugger, I submit the premise that wild animals should not be caged. They evolved in wide open spaces and basically go insane when penned up in sub-square-mile pens. Witness the incessant pacing we've all seen when any large animal is stuck in a 30x50 cage. Heck, even mice and rats go nuts when stuck in a standard research crate.
Some zoos are working hard to create relatively large spaces for animals, and create the illusion of greater space through lighting and various disguises on the walls. This makes it less likely the animals will be close up for people to view, but much more likely that the (the animals) can feel acclimated and calm down a bit.

Nobody actually taunted.

[ClioCJS]

Read the follow-up articles. There's a discussion going on about it HERE.

THERE WAS NO TAUNTING.

[ClioCJS]

Read the goddamn follow-up articles. They were just trying to save face. And it worked on schmoes like you who swallow it up and don't consider that it might be a bunch of bullshit. You know they seized their cellphones and such and found 0 evidence of taunting.

Re:THERE WAS NO TAUNTING.

[Tanuki64]

So you say the tiger was lieing in the sun, perhaps thinking: 'What a boring day today. What could I do? Hey, look those hairless apes over there. Let's see how they taste'. Maybe, but somehow I doubt it.

Re:THERE WAS NO TAUNTING.

[greenbird]

Read the goddamn follow-up articles.

I have been. I couldn't find a link with a quick search and I don't have time at the moment to do a more thorough search but one of them has now admitted they were taunting the tiger but still claims they weren't dangling things into the tiger pit. So you can except that they already told one lie and extrapolate from the fact that the tiger hunted down these three individuals amongst many for some reason other than random chance.

You know they seized their cellphones and such and found 0 evidence of taunting.

What the hell does that prove? Hmmm... yeah so they didn't make any taunting cell phone calls or text messages to the tiger. Who is the "schmoes" here?

Re:THERE WAS NO TAUNTING.

[greenbird]

Read the goddamn follow-up articles.

You should follow your own advice, but they're still claiming they didn't through anything into the pen. So you can except that they already told one lie and extrapolate from the fact that the tiger hunted down these three individuals amongst many for some reason other than random chance.

You know they seized their cellphones and such and found 0 evidence of taunting.

What the hell does that prove? Hmmm... yeah so they didn't make any taunting cell phone calls or text messages to the tiger. Who is the "schmoes" here?

Re:THERE WAS NO TAUNTING.

[ClioCJS]

Interesting update, thanks. Be that as it may, I don't really care if they threw items into the pen. It's still the zoo's fault. Even if they threw throwing stars into the tiger's eyeballs, I still think it's the zoo's fault. I don't think standing on the edge of a rail, or even dangling something into the cage, is at all morally reprehensible. Throwing stars thrown in the tiger's eyeballs would most definitely be morally reprehensible.

Re:THERE WAS NO TAUNTING.

[statemachine]

Perhaps you didn't see the latest article (Jan. 29, 2008) where the SF Police found no evidence of taunting and stopped the investigation.

No witnesses. No slingshots. No thrown objects. No confession.

Perhaps it would also help if I point out that this cat has previously attacked a human with no provocation? I'm sorry, but I feel that giving it food is a positive event. The zoo was found liable in that case by Cal/OSHA who concluded the cage was unsafe and that zoo officials knew this beforehand.

On Dec. 22 of last year, 300-pound Tatiana severely injured keeper Lori Komejan inside the Lion House, "degloving" her arm, as the state's workplace safety report put it. That agency, Cal/OSHA blamed the zoo, citing defects that the zoo knew about but hadn't fixed, and imposed an $18,000 penalty.

Air Resistance?

[Anonymous Coward]

Their calculations neglect air resistance, which I would think might matter somewhat for such a large surface area object.

New wall also inadequate

[flug]

If the SFGate diagram is correct and the arXiv article's calculation is correct, then the new, 19-foot high wall is still inadequate--because the tiger can jump from a spot 10 feet higher than the bottom of the moat.

According to the SFGate diagram, the distance from the edge of the grotto to the top of the "new" safety wall is 33 feet over and 9 feet up.

According go the calculations in the arXiv article, the tiger can theoretically jump 33 feet over and 12.5 feet up--clearing the "new" safety wall by an easy 3.5 feet vertical.

That might be theoretical, but you still won't find me standing there . . .

• http://www.sfgate.com/c/pictures/2008/01/03/mn_grotto.jpg
• http://arxiv.org/abs/0801.4407

Gee whiz, a tiger's never killed anything, has it?

[ClioCJS]

Considering that this tiger had already attacked humans multiple times before, are you really so naive and falsely optimistic as to think tigers never go around indiscriminately killing? Have you ever owned a cat??? http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/01/07/tiger.attack/index.html#cnnSTCText "Inspector Valerie Matthews said the investigation had found no evidence that Paul and Kulbir Dhaliwal taunted a 350-pound tiger"

Re:the tiger had superior knowledge of the situati

[R2.0]

"People taunt tigers in zoos every single day in this country;"

That is correct, but the OP used the wrong word. The idiots ATTACKED the tiger, using a weapon. And then stuck around and brought more attention to themselves, allowing the tiger to focus and attack in return.

When dealing with wild animals/forces of nature, there is no justice, no rights, no "deserve". The Boxing day tsunami cared nothing for whether those people "deserved" to die, and neither did the tiger. Perhaps this incident will serve to remind more people of their real place in he cosmos.

sick of

[towsonu2003]

a Siberian Tiger he had allegedly been taunting at San Francisco zoo at the end of last year.

I am really sick of this word "alleged", especially when used for stuff that really happened... Authors should stop using this nonsense word.

Please show me the link supporting a slingshot.

[ClioCJS]

All follow-up articles stated that the authorities concluded, after investigation, that there was NO taunting. Also: This specific tiger had already attacked humans multiple times before! http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/01/07/tiger.attack/index.html#cnnSTCText "Inspector Valerie Matthews said the investigation had found no evidence that Paul and Kulbir Dhaliwal taunted a 350-pound tiger"

This just in - Stop the presses

[LrdDimwit]

Physicist conducts analysis, concludes that thing which already happened is theoretically possible.

Rather common error really...

[Anonymous Coward]

This zoo decided to measure the last enclosure the tiger ate the guy at and build that one. Slight algorithm error.

Somebody obviously forgot that the testing was indexed starting at 0 rather than 1.

I was just there

[mu51c10rd]

I was at this zoo last May and do remember the lion house as they call it with the tiger enclosures. The tigers (including the one in this situation) were just lying about or walking around. The moat does look fairly deep and the fence is very close to the moat edge. It would take some severe irritation to get one of them to take the time to try to escape and attack you. There are benches right behind the fence and I felt in no danger at all...but I wasn't intoxicated and taunting them either. Also, getting down into the moat from the grass is a big drop and the tigers didn't see interested in going down there. I also could not see how the tiger could get much of a running jump in the moat. I imagine their taunting must have enraged it to the point that the massive andrenaline rush gave it the boost it needed. Pure anecdotal evidence, but that is what I noticed there last year.

THERE WAS NO TAUNTING

[ClioCJS]

Every follow-up article (which people don't usually bother to read) has said that the investigation concluded THERE WAS NO TAUNTING. That was just FUD on the zoo's part. And you fell for it hook, line, and sinker. http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/01/07/tiger.attack/index.html#cnnSTCText

Re:THERE WAS NO TAUNTING

[greenbird]

Every follow-up article (which people don't usually bother to read) has said that the investigation concluded THERE WAS NO TAUNTING.

Except ones like this with headlines like "Police: Tiger attack victim was drinking, admitted taunting".

And you fell for it hook, line, and sinker.

No you fell for the lies of three drunk high idiots "hook, line, and sinker."

AGAIN - THERE WAS NO TAUNTING!

[ClioCJS]

Every follow-up article (which people don't usually bother to read) has said that the investigation concluded THERE WAS NO TAUNTING. That was just FUD on the zoo's part. And you fell for it hook, line, and sinker. http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/01/07/tiger.attack/index.html#cnnSTCText

Re:AGAIN - THERE WAS NO TAUNTING!

[jav1231]

According to police reports Paul Dhaliwal admitted to "standing atop a railing of the big cat enclosure and yelling and waving at the animal that would later maul them," killing Carlos Sousa Jr. on Christmas Day at the SF Zoo.
BTW: That's from a newer article. Not saying which is true but there seems to be conflicting data.

RE: idlemind (760102) - Tongue in cheek, Dude.

Re:AGAIN - THERE WAS NO TAUNTING!

[Rogerborg]

the investigation concluded THERE WAS NO TAUNTING

No, it did not. It "found no evidence". Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Counter argument: of course they Goddamn taunted it. Look at them. It's just a shame that it only took out the apparently least shitbrained of the three, who made the mistake of standing up for his "friends", while they abandoned him at the first opportunity.

Tigers acting like tigers

[billstewart]

There was a tiger attack at some animal park a decade or two ago, and some TV reporter asked the trainer whether they'd known the individual animal was dangerous before the attack. His reply was "Maam, they're tigers."

Or as a friend of mine commented, "If they were six-foot cuddly bunny-rabbits, we'd have called them bunny-rabbits, not tigers!"

They have the facts wrong.

[CyberVenom]

I visited the SF zoo about a week before the incident. The tiger enclosures have a grassy area, level with the spectators, which is then surrounded by a 12ft deep by 30ft wide dry moat. The dry moat has a pathway down into it on the tigers' side so that the tigers can climb into and out of it at will. If the tiger lept from the bottom of the moat, it would need to go 12ft vertically to get up the spectator-side. But the ideal path would be to leap from the grassy area inside the moat, straight across to the spectator area - 33ft distance, but none vertical.

Since in ballistics, a trajectory of 55 degrees is equivalent to 35 degrees in distance (though not in azumith), if we eliminate the 12ft requirement from the equation, we can see that the 33ft leap is possible with the same speed, but with as little as a 35 degree angle. Taking into account that a faster speed with a shallower trajectory is also theoretically possible and that by leaping from its hind legs and landing with its front, the tiger's body length effectively shortens the distance a good 6-8 ft, this makes it pretty obvious that the leap is more than plausible.

Obviously the tiger escaped the enclosure, so some sort of escape must have been possible - the real question is only, should the architects have known how easy the leap would be? And the answer seems a resounding, yes.

And here is a photo that explicitly shows that the tiger and the spectators are on level ground. In the photo, you can't see the dry moat which lies between the bamboo and the grassy area:
http://www.citizen.co.za/index/AFPData/english/shared/top/SGE.NIN80.261207042337.photo00.photo.default-512x356.jpg

Re:the tiger had superior knowledge of the situati

[Grishnakh]

Humans have pathetic jumping ability, even the basketball stars, compared to cats (or most animals for that matter). Humans' advantage is their bipedal nature and the flexibility that offers for things like climbing, carrying large objects, etc. For things like running and jumping, we simply suck. My housecats could outrun me.

House cats can easily jump a 6-foot wall. I see it all the time here in Phoenix, where all our back yards are separated by 6-foot block walls, and it's common to see cats running around on top of them. This is for a cat which stands less than 12" at the shoulder and weighs 10 pounds or less. A Siberian tiger weighs 300-450 pounds. These animals are huge, and they're at least as well-muscled as a housecat. It makes perfect sense that they could jump over the wall at this zoo, given sufficient motivation.

If you've ever had the privilege of being very close to a large cat, you'd have a better appreciation of their size and musculature. I got to sit next to a cage with a mountain lion at a zoo once (one of the zookeepers let me in the back to see it); mountain lions aren't anywhere near as large as tigers, maybe about the size of a large dog, except that they have FAR more muscle than any dog of that height and length. I wouldn't ever want to tangle with a mountain lion; it's possible to fight one off if you have to, but many people have been killed by them in the wild, and many others severely injured. Tigers are much bigger than this; fighting with a tiger is like fighting with a bear. You're probably going to lose.

need the vertical component

[tgibbs]

They calculated the linear velocity that a tiger would need for a take-off angle of 55 degrees. But that is relevant only if the zoo has thoughtfully provided a 55 degree launch ramp for the tiger. Building up speed in one direction is one thing, it is easy to imagine that a tiger with a running start can accelerate to the required horizontal velocity of a little over 15 miles per hour. But to achieve the required total velocity of about 27 mph, the tiger also needs to be able to accelerate vertically to 21.9 mph, and it doesn't get a run-up to accelerate to that speed--it needs to do that in one step (well, leap).

So does anybody know how how high a tiger can jump from a standing start? (I doubt if running helps much for altitude) Basically, it needs to be able to jump as high as the wall. Although to be fair, they did a center of mass calculation--a real tiger wouldn't have to get its COM over the wall, just get high enough for its forepaws to reach the top, and it might have enough momentum and friction to run up the wall a step or so.

How many tigers in the world

[billstewart]

The number of tigers in the wild has been declining rapidly, and if you want real numbers check reputable sources. Last I heard it was under 3000, and it might be a lot fewer by now, and general estimates are that by 20 year from now they'll be extinct in the wild.

The number of tigers in zoos is about 4000.

As many as 3000 tigers may be in farms in China, being raised to sell as traditional medicine for people whose penises aren't big enough or who think their bones will make them stronger.

The number of tigers that are kept as pets by Americans is about 6000. There are animal activists like Tippi Hedren trying to make laws against keeping tigers as pets, because almost nobody who has pet tigers has enough space and resources to let them live like tigers need to, especially the occasional drug dealer in some apartment building in New York who wanted to out-macho his competitors' pit bulls. She's well-intentioned, but the species needs all the genetic diversity it can get, even though tigers aren't meant to live like house-cats.

Math not needed -- just common sense

[Anonymous Coward]

On four recorded occasions, humans have jumped at least 29 feet. I'd bet a tiger can easily clear 4 feet more, plus 2.5ft of height. (see diagram) I doubt the new fence is adequate.

http://www.sfgate.com/c/pictures/2008/01/03/mn_grotto.jpg

Mod parent up...

[BendingSpoons]

for an extremely informative post. Doubly deserving of moderation when contrasted with the misinformation in grandparent's post.

A lot of predatory behavior is learned, not instinctual. That's why your pet tabby will play with a mouse instead of killing and eating it. Chasing after a little furry blob is hard-wired, but a cat needs a mother to teach it to (a) administer a killing blow, rather than just playing with it, and (b) eat it afterwards.

The kid who died was NEVER ALLEGEDED TO TAUNT!

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, the kid who died was not alleged to be a taunter. Some witnesses said he was the one who looked askance on his "friends". He only "taunted" the cat once it was attacking one of the others, distracting it away and being killed for his effort.

Please don't make bullshit accusations. Sounds like the kid had poor taste in friends but otherwise was a good guy.

Paper wrong - treats animals like inclined plane

[gnuman99]

*Exactly*.

The so called calculations are crap. The top speed is irrelevant to the jump distance as dy/dt or vertical velocity at takeoff has everything to do with available muscle power at that time. If you are going top speed, you CANNOT jump super distances, but if you are going a little slower, you have that reserve for the upward jump which gives you distance. To get height, you have to almost stop - see high jump.

Horizontal velocity is the distance and depends on your speed.
Vertical velocity is the time you'll spend in the air before gravity pulls you back down.
Both depend on your total impulse power and top "RPMs" of your leg muscles (kind of constant). The paper just treats the problem as an inlined plane trajectory - WAY too simplistic to reality.

This turns out to be a differential equation. The "paper" just describes maximum distance at a best take off angle. The tiger could NEVER do what the paper describes. It can't go 25 miles per hour from one jump!! That is the scenario described by the paper. The jump angle is always shallow. The larger the angle, the less the total velocity because you have to translate horizontal muscle motion into vertical impulse.

Finally, your diagram makes it much more believable that a tiger CAN jump the distance. Humans can come close to the distance the tiger jumped in your diagram. The new addition will make the jump impossible.

Re:the tiger had superior knowledge of the situati

[Anonymous Coward]

.. so rascist

Design Problem was known for 40 years

[billstewart]

According to an article in the San Francisco Bay Guardian, the design problems were known 40 years ago. As you say, it wasn't "fine when it was built" - it's not like tigers have gotten bigger in the last century, though perhaps Siberian tigers are bigger than whatever species of tiger they originally put in it. And the moat was never deep or wide enough, and tigers are even better at leaping across than jumping straight up.

The real reason the wall worked that long is that none of the tigers had previously felt motivated enough to jump at it. Apparently Siberians are more aggressive than Bengals, and maybe the two drunk kids pissed her off or just acted enough like prey or cat toys that she went for them. My cats sit on the couch looking out the window at Bird TV, and when one of them sees a laser pointer red dot he has to jump for it without thinking about it first (the other one says "Hey, stop wavin' that thing around".) And I've seen zoo leopards looking at the crowds, intensely tracking the smaller ones that get separated a bit from their herds; I'd feel much safer around tigers.

Watch your agro, nubs.

[Vileedge]

Isn't that always the way it works? Someone else taunts it, dumps agro, and somehow the guy being civil gets critically struck. Talk about being a tank in a bad situation. Seriously. Do not PUG San Francisco Zoo . . . there is no group rez.

teleport?

[Anonymous Coward]

I was at the zoo once when a vulture managed to fly out of her cage. It had been a little too long since her last wing clip. She was terrified and spent all her free minutes desperately trying to teleport back through the fence into her enclosure, until a keeper picked her up.

I'd really like to see some of the vulture's notes. There could be some insightful information coming from the perspective of a new species. Was she able to reach prototype stage before the the keeper put her back in the cage? Or am I getting this all wrong and the vulture simply didn't have the right spell components?

Re:teleport?

[ceoyoyo]

I don't think the vulture was having any more luck teleporting through the bars than anybody else has at teleporting macroscopic objects.

Perhaps it would have been more accurate to say that she was doing her best to quantum tunnel back into the cage. She was certainly trying to get as close to the bars as possible to raise the probability of spontaneous tunneling as high as she could.

Classic Childish "But X did it!" argument

[spun]

Damned if they do, damned if they don't, huh? Spend too much, Government BAD! Cut costs, Government BAD! Where I'm from, the government is less likely to cut corners because if they cut costs, their budget gets cut. Sad, but true.

So, government cutting corners makes it okay for corporations to to do it? I suppose Clinton getting a blow job means it's okay that Bush lied to get us into a war? Nice logic.

At least with government there is some accountability to all citizens, not just voting shareholders.

Re:Classic Childish "But X did it!" argument

[fast penguin]

Don't you see you are contradicting yourself? In one hand, you believe that the people will keep government accountable. In the other hand, you say that Bush can get away with unjustified wars. (and yes, I understand that he may not have won the vote majority the first election, but it was a close margin nevertheless)

If socialism is such good thing why doesn't it evolve from a freedom setup? Why do you want the government to provide for those kind of services, rather than let people naturally form and join such organizations?

As a horse person...

[cf1000]

I think the calculation is too simplistic. Translating ground speed into an inclined leap is not quite right. I've ridden jumper horses for many years, and the world jumping height record is around 7'6". Some horses can also leap a span of almost 20', but only get maybe 3-4' off the ground at while doing so. Also, the highest jumps are approached at a slow speed (a horse can jump 5' or more from a standstill). Of course, this is a tiger, not a horse, and one that isn't saddled with the weight of a human on it's back. But I just can't see such an enormous leap, even from such an athletic animal.

Re:the tiger had superior knowledge of the situati

[contraba55]

The problem is we don't have enough tigers.

NO FACTUAL evidence the tiger was TAUNTED

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no factual evidence the tiger was taunted. This was PURE speculation on the Zoo's administrator part purely for PR purposes. The article cited does not even address this! Please correct the summary.

Re:NO FACTUAL evidence the tiger was TAUNTED

[statemachine]

Well, the one submission I did (that was attributed to me) had the quotes completely changed by the editor, which to many people confused the issue -- some said they preferred my original submission. But I won't hold it against the editor, as he at least read the article, and it seemed like he tried.

Of course, this time the editor appears to not even read the article and, thus, leaves in an unsubstantiated, inflammatory opinion of the submitter. I can only hope it was unintentional.

Maybe someone will come forward later, a weapon and a ladder will be found, as well as several pounds of kitty treats and catnip. But until then, I don't see how I can change my mind that this was the victims' fault for being killed and mauled by an escaped known people-mauling tiger from a known defective enclosure. But I really don't care if they were launching mortars into there. The cat, especially one with a prior history, should never have been able to get out.

Cats

[TamMan2000]

As the owner of a house cat, I am not surprised in the slightest...

Dont be an idiot

[nobodyman]

If an animal in a zoo (or anywhere else for that matter) becomes a mankiller, that's a human's fault, not the animal's.

Fair enough. I'm with you so far...

The animal shouldn't die because of some asshole human. If it kills other people, that's just too bad; they're 6.5 billion of us. We can afford to lose a few.

Sorry, now you lost me. I think you'll likely disagree if one of those "few" is either yourself or someone you love. It sickens me to think that your regard for human life is a function ofhow many humans are out there.

It doesn't matter *how* you create the mankilling tiger. Yes, so sad for the tiger, but you can be damn sure I'll choose for the tiger to die over any human life.

And contrary to popular thought, this wasn't the first time the tiger mauled somebody. It had mauled one of the zoo staff prior to being taunted by this punk kid. It's fair to say that this previous incident lowered the tiger's threshold for going on a kill frenzy.

Re:Dont be an idiot

[Grishnakh]

I'm sorry, but if I disregard some human life more than you, that doesn't make me an "idiot". That just means my values are different from yours. That may sicken you for some odd reason, but again, it has nothing to do with intelligence, only moral values. Different people and different cultures have different value systems.

No, I don't really think some innocent bystander should be killed by the tiger. However, I do think it's perfectly fair for the tiger to kill the morons who were taunting it. I would NOT choose for a tiger to die over any human life. Some human life, perhaps, but not any. If some aliens abducted you and placed you in an experiment where they were going to kill something, and you had to choose, and the choices were a tiger, and some scumbag murderer on death row, which would you choose? I'd choose the murderer, easy. Same situation, but it was some asshole teenager who had been taunting the tiger? I'd choose the teenager. If he's such an idiot, and such an asshole, as to taunt a caged animal like that, who knows what other nasty and vicious things he's done or will do. This sounds like the kind of person who would engage in cockfighting or dogfighting, like Michael Vick.

Re:Dont be an idiot

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't even go for something as basic as an eye for an eye, you say harassing a tiger is as bad as murder. Hell you even compare it to injuring and killing animals. Jesus, how do you even justify your existence. You're depressing.

Re:Dont be an idiot

[Grishnakh]

I never said harassing a tiger is as bad as murder. I'm not advocating that we hunt down people who harass tigers and stick them in the electric chair. However, I am advocating that people who harass tigers should be laughed at when they get killed by the tigers they harass.

Tigers aren't human. They don't have our morals and ethics, and they don't obey our laws. They're wild animals. If you go out in the jungle and find a tiger, and proceed to harass it, would you be surprised when it decided to kill you? So why should it be any different when the tiger is in a zoo? People escape prison cells all the time, jump over fences, tunnel under walls, etc., so it shouldn't be too surprising when a large animal figures out how to get out of its enclosure. And if it decided to do so because someone was annoying it, that should be even less surprising. So why is any consideration at all given to those stupid enough to taunt a grown tiger?

It's the simple law of the jungle. Annoy an animal that's much bigger and more powerful than you, and it will kill you. When that happens, the animal shouldn't be subject to any human punishments for simply doing what nature programmed it to do.

There was a Darwin Award given some time ago to a guy in Malaysia who taunted an elephant, offering it food and then taking it away before the elephant could eat it. The elephant got annoyed and gored him with its tusk (killing him, obviously). Served him right. This incident looks much the same to me. "Play with fire, and you're going to get burned."

haha

[ClioCJS]

Yelling and waving is taunting?!? Most people I've talked to assumed taunting meant some type of physical abuse (Throwing rocks). If their "Taunting" is simply yelling and waving their arms, then that makes me think it's pretty much 0% their fault. Hell, yelling and waving arms usually REPELS animals, even predators -- even bears.

Re:haha

[jav1231]

Okay, first my OP was to be taken tongue-in-cheek. However, had they not yelled and screamed we likely wouldn't have ever heard about this. I'm just sayin'.
Second, yes yelling and screaming is taunting. In fact taunting implies a verbal assault. Look it up! Damn! Stop wearing your feelings on your sleeve or life will chew you up! Let it go, live a little, enjoy life!

Re:haha

[ClioCJS]

see, yelling and making yourself larger usually repels predators. I think it may have been the slingshots they had on them (I have received some updated news since my first barrage of comments -- it worked, I got other people do to the research for me!)

But as far as I'm concerned, even if they went there with Ninja throwing stars, and threw them into the eyeballs of the tigers, the zoo is still 100% at fault and liable. Though cruelty to animal charges would certainly be possible. These people asking for manslaughter charges are a bit over the top. The zoo has been trying to save face from the start, saying the wall would hvae been high enough "for another 100 yeras" except for these guys. I'm like -- Uhh, no. The wall isn't high enough of it's possible for any tiger to get over it under any circumstances. Period. Anything less is taking a calculated risk on someone else's lives. Had those people known the real risk, they might not have 'taunted'...

Re:haha

[mvdwege]

see, yelling and making yourself larger usually repels predators.

See, tigers are apex predators, very efficient killing machines at the top of the food chain. Tigers are also known to be very territorial. Now, standing and shouting in the full view of the tiger is dominance behaviour, especially if you're looking straight at it. What do you think the natural reaction of a tiger to an invasion of its territory by a creature showing dominant behaviour is going to be?

Note also that most stories of wild tigers attacking humans are in the context of human settlements encroaching upon tiger territory.

So yes, yelling and making yourself larger is taunting in the context of tiger behaviour.

Side note: when a Dutch woman taunted a gorilla and it went on a rampage, the animal was tranquilised and put back in its enclosure, even after mauling several unrelated bystanders. Somehow the shooting of Tatiana does not a lot to dispel the image of Americans as a bunch of trigger-happy rednecks.

Mart

Re:haha

[ClioCJS]

Well, if that is the case, then point taken. I still think the zoo's at fault, and I still don't really object to them shooting it. And I don't care about image. But -- interesting point. I'll keep that in mind. I mean, so far I've been snapping my fingers, and it has been preventing tiger attacks -- but you never know.

Here's a laugh: guy brings lion to a party where the lion taunts the guests.

Re:haha

[mvdwege]

Just snapping your fingers won't do. However, transgressing the territorial line and puffing yourself up (like, oh, standing on top of the enclosure wall and yelling) will trigger a response. With luck, the animal will take fright and hide, but in case of an adult tiger with a dominant character, it will provoke an attack to drive off the intruder. Try looking a tiger straight in the eyes when snapping your fingers, and you will see the same. Tigers are like all other cats that way, a stare is a dominance challenge.

As for the lion at the party, no comparison. Lions are social animals, and within the context of the pride are not that territorial. If well tamed, that lioness will see her handler as the pride's alpha male, and will only attack if he is showing a territorial reaction. This is also why the lion is the preferred animal of big cat trainers in entertainment (such as the circus). There are horror stories of lion tamers losing their dominant status and getting attacked by the animals.

Mart

Re:haha

[Raenex]

Tigers are like all other cats that way, a stare is a dominance challenge. My cat used to stare at me, but it didn't otherwise display behavior of trying to dominate -- like getting aggressive. I don't know what it was thinking, but dominance wasn't it.

Re:haha

[mvdwege]

Try staring right back. That'll do the trick, usually. Housecats are not particularly territorial, they are in fact quite social, so outright aggression is not usual, but they do dislike a staring match.

Mart

Re:haha

[Raenex]

I did stare back. It was fun to get the attention from my putty cat. But then after a while I would just walk over and give him a tap on the head. He never hissed, twitched his tail, or anything. Anyways, that was some time ago, and the cat has since died, so I can't do any experiments.

also

[ClioCJS]

also we must define taunting. physical taunting, or just yelling? The word apparently makes most people think of *physical* attack. If it's just yelling, then I'm quite pissed at all the people who somehow think it's acceptable that the tiger did this. "Oh, he's just being a tiger, doing what tigers do!" Yes, well, so were the humans.. Under the expectation that a zoo would not release a wild animal on them. And would at least have a goddamned security guard with a tranquilizer gun! WTF! The ambulance wouldn't even come until the police arrived because everyone was so scared. If the authorities can't deal with a situation, then that just puts more onus on the zoo to have someone on hand at all times who can deal with such threats. If we have cops tasering elementary school children, we can certainly have a security guard with a tranq-gun in a zoo. Zoo's fault. 100%.

Re:also

[Anonymous Coward]

Won't somebody PLEASE think of the children!!!111oneeleven

*sigh*

Zoo's fault 100%?

Do you EVER dare to walk outside, with that mindset?

More realistically, it would be: Zoo's fault < 100%. Idiots' fault > 0%.

Try to be a tad more nuanced in your reasoning and arguments. It would make you look less dumb, and less like a populistic politician to boot, as a bonus. You really have nothing to lose. Advice free of charge. You're welcome.

Seems to me it worked.

[Anonymous Coward]

...but do you really think yelling "Stop" is going to have a major impact on the behavior of the tiger? According to the very section you quoted, the tiger turned its attention towards the officers shouting at it.

So yes, it did work. The tiger's attention was pulled away from defenseless bystanders and drawn towards a target that had the ability to defend itself.

Strong reaction, comments and mods!

[FuzzyDaddy]

Well, my parent comment has had quite a ride, mod-wise. Initially it went up to 4, insightful. Then it got a flamebait mod, then a BUNCH of overrated mods, then another flamebait, so it's down to 0. And 49 responses so far, not counting this one.

Somehow the taunting is pretty fundamental to the way people are reacting to the story. Perhaps it's the desire to see an accident in terms of exceptional circumstances that don't apply to us. Perhaps it's a revenge fantasy for every asshole who made life a little more unpleasant. Perhaps, in some removed way, people see it as a cartoon rather than a real, bloody death. But, somehow, people DO care that this guy died, and the circumstances of the taunting profoundly color people's reaction.

I feel sorry for this guy's family. I feel sorry for the tiger.

Hmm.

Re:Strong reaction, comments and mods!

[statemachine]

This is what metamod is for. A bunch of us are stuck here without mod points, and instead of staying on the sidelines, are motivated to respond to the ignorant and inhuman responses by a vocal few who were modded up by similar ignorant and indecent human beings. When this discussion swings by my metamod session, I'll enjoy making sure they don't unfairly moderate again.

SFPD believes tiger was provoked

[Anonymous Coward]

Your information is old.

This week, the San Francisco Police Department said (in a court) that found evidence that suggests that the tiger was provoked. However there weren't many witnesses, and the SFPD doesn't have enough evidence to know what kind of provocation happened, and that provocation isn't necessarily illegal. Drinking booze & smoking pot before going to the SF Zoo isn't necessarily a serious crime.

Police said in court documents that they believed the attack was in part triggered by the victims provoking the animal. They did not specify what, if any, crimes they thought had been committed.

More info at :

http://news.google.com/news?ncl=1127062763

Re:SFPD believes tiger was provoked

[ClioCJS]

I had mentioned this in another comment that pointed out this new news, which is quite interesting. But be that as it may:

Taunting is quite vague. If they were just yelling and posturing and screaming, that's just a human being a human; it's our nature to act like the apes we are. I don't think that should result in even 1% of a loss of liability owed to them. I also don't think dangling anything into the cage is any more than a violation of zoo rules that should result in them getting kicked out. I don't think it makes them liable for what happened. People are going to be the apes they are.

But say, for example, they threw ninja throwing stars into the tiger's flesh.... THAT is morally reprehensible. However, I would still judge the zoo to be 100% liable in the event of the tiger leaping a wall that was NOT tall enough (I would expect cruelty to animal criminal charges though!!!).

A cage/enclosure is supposed to guarantee unconditional safety, and that is most certainly an expectation the public has when entering a zoo. If they posted a sign "caution: walls are 25% shorter than they should be, and tigers can jump 25% higher when taunted", I actually think nobody would want to go there. And if they did, it would constitute such a real risk that it would be borderline child-abuse to bring your child to the zoo! No, no, no. We all have a reasonable expectation of safety at the zoo.

And the paramedics wouldn't even show up for like what, 30 minutes? They were scared of the tiger that was lose, and wouldn't show. They waited for the police. Clearly, the authorities DO NOT WORK in this situation, yet the zoo still can't bother to have ONE QUALIFIED INDIVIDUAL who can fire a tranquilizer gun from a safe vantage? The zoo was pretty damn helpless here, and it's pretty much all their fault. I don't know the "violence timeline", but if any injuries occurred near the end of it, those specifically could have been avoided by the zoo having trained personnel on hand. And if their walls aren't high enough to prevent a tiger from jumping them (they weren't!) -- then the onus is on them that much more to have trained personnel on hand to diffuse such a situation.

Nope

[dpryan]

He was with them and, presumably, also taunted them.

no problems? i doubt that...

[Anonymous Coward]

given the declining numbers of wildlife tigers, i DO see a problem.
given that tigers are already on their way to the red list, i DO see another problem.
your view is to system-centric.
one tiger for every jackass won`t do, because we`ld run out of tigers by friday 24hrs (its Friday 23:05 hrs here).

the problem was not the tiger. the tiger by itself was satisfied with it`s situation until some tiger-taunting idiot came along.
the idiot gave the tiger a reason to "defend its turf", e.g. a necessary, normal (for a tiger or a human - no difference) action.
if i where to throw tiger-dung against the idiots home door, he`ld surely also come out.

what I do not get is - why did they have to shoot the tiger in first place. I`ld rather have them put guards up there (tigerpolice anyone)
that shoot taunting idiots on sight, than risk loosing another tiger of that dwindling population to the idiocy virus. after all,
there is enough humans left on this planet - something you can`t say about tigers.

try have a look:
www.vhemt.org

and yes - i think foamy is right, regarding idiotic kids in (un)amusement parks:
http://www.illwillpress.com/unam2.html

mess with the tiger, get eaten by tiger. simple rule. after all you can't wash the stripes of the tiger.

There might be something to that!

[Stealth Potato]

Hmmmm. I have a 12-gauge in my closet, and I sure don't see any tigers around here! It must work! :-D

However sad

[unixfan]

it was that this guy got mauled it is interesting to note that it was someone taunting the tiger. Versus someone who was just admiring it. The tiger mauls him and then jumps back in again, hmm.
Which begs the other question, how do you taunt a tiger in such a scenario? Being that if you were too obvious one would think someone would have interferred.

I've seen tigers in the wild, but I was safely in a car and nobody yelled at them or anything like that. They simply rested in the shade and looked like they could care less. (Pretty typical of cats in general.) Which again brings the question; what did he do to taunt it? Does any article relay that?

Re:However sad

[somersault]

The tiger killed someone who wasn't taunting him, and hurt the two that were before being killed (from what others are saying). It didn't jump back in, try RTFA..

Plus it's *couldn't* care less, could makes no logical sense. The way they were taunting the tiger was by roaring at it.

yeah

[ClioCJS]

Too bad the tiger couldn't have killed the instigator. That would have been better and placed less blame on the zoo, right? Because a person forfeits their right to life when they taunt a supposedly-caged animal, right? It's one of those death penalty offenses, like murder, right?

Re:yeah

[anthonys_junk]

A person doesn't forfeit their right to life when they do something life-endangering, but they certainly raise the odds that they will die. A person doesn't forfeit their right to life when they stand in front of an oncoming train either, but stacking the odds against yourself makes it more likely that you will end up paying for your own stupidity. The real world is not about justice, there are no courts, sometimes there's no social contract to protect you when you do SOMETHING FUCKING STUPID LIKE MAKING 350lb OF MUSCLE, TEETH AND CLAWS ANGRY AT YOU.

If you do want to talk about justice etc. - too bad it didn't kill all three of them actually.

Re:yeah

[Rogerborg]

Because a person forfeits their right to life when they taunt a supposedly-caged animal, right?

That's a very interesting question. Why don't you baste yourself in BBQ sauce, climb into a tiger's enclosure, and debate the point with it? I'm sure that you'll be able to persuade it that you enjoy an inalienable "right" to life.

I've taunted many a pararie dog at the zoo

[gatkinso]

and never had a problem. Sheesh!

...justice, really?

[ClioCJS]

more like 800 lbs (I dunno really), but I like how if they made a person mad and the person killed all 3 of them -- everyone would hate the person, and he would be charged with a murder. But suddenly when an animal does it, somehow the victim becomes the perpetrator. This is supposedly because the animal is stupider, so my question is -- If I taunt a 350 lb retarded person and he kills me and 2 of my friends, is that justice too?

Re:...justice, really?

[anthonys_junk]

more like 800 lbs

Thanks, I was thinking in metric, 800lbs is about right.

You must have missed the bit where I said that

The real world is not about justice, there are no courts, sometimes there's no social contract to protect you... To answer your question anyway: Yes. I could see the justice in that too actually, and I'm sorry, but It would probably give me a warm glow on the inside and cheery smile for the rest of the day.

Re:...justice, really?

[pennyloafer]

>But suddenly when an animal does it, somehow the victim becomes the perpetrator. It's generally true with exotic animal attacks in a zoo. The human victim is the perp in animal attacks. The animal has to go to pretty exceptional lengths to get to the attacker. Teasing, spitting, yelling, etc. But then again, I wouldn't think you are calling a wild tiger in a zoo a 'perpetrator'? I can see it, but....

The men have inadvertently saved lives

[stronggate]

The mauled men have inadvertently made the zoo a safer place. Sooner or later, a tiger would have been able to escape - and let's just be glad that it turned out to be drunken teens waving at the tiger rather than immature kids who yell and scream. In either case, it's the zoo's fault for enabling the tiger to escape.

I see you're still working with polymers.

[BeeBeard]

Suppose I were to show you a way to manufacture a wall that would do the same job but be only one inch thick...Would that be worth something to you, laddie?

All Hail Homo Sapiens

[BeeBeard]

Good point, especially considering that police have already testified in court documents to a belief that the first idiot who was attacked ("Carlos Sousa Jr.", age 17) was trying to impress his friends, acting like some kind of badass by taunting the tiger and dangling limbs into the enclosure. Given that the tiger was...a tiger, It's not really surprising that the tiger would take advantage of a marginal wall and try to get a good clamp on the whole ignorant gang, is it?

Consider that there was once a time in human history when the humanoid who didn't know not to go near a tiger, or not to run the hell away from it at the first opportunity, simply ended up tiger food, and our species ended up stronger because of it.

So far, the so-called victims have contradicted other eyewitness accounts and denied any involvement in provoking the tiger or, worse yet, giving the animal means to escape (with a board or other instrument). Their side of the story comes as a predicate to potential litigation, so you can understand that the incentive to lie about what really happened is strong.

Are you insane?

[mosb1000]

People are people. They sure as hell do get specail rights against wild animals. What, did you think we invented guns just for show? Tell you what, I'll agree to "be on my own" just as soon as they agree to let me bring a shotgun into the zoo. Until then, I expect the zoo to keep their animals properly secured. No matter how much I taunt the animal, it should not be able to escape it's enclosure.

I was listening to the news this morning, and a zoo official said "we realize that it will not be possible for us to prove that the tiger was properly contained". Well, no shit, if the tiger can escape, it is not properly contained. It scares me that the zoo officials are just now figuring this out, I knew that as soon as I heard the tiger had escaped and eaten someone.

Ever heard of STRICT LIABILITY IN TORT?

[mbstone]

Over 600 posts and y'all are still debating whether the zoo was "negligent" or whether the tiger was "taunted." The plaintiffs don't have to prove "negligence." A keeper of a wild animal is strictly liable for damages caused by an escaping animal, without regard to fault. This is why the SF Zoo has hired PR people to dirty-up the victims by claiming the tiger was taunted, the victims were drunk, etc., hoping the media will unquestioningly repeat it, and that somebody who hears it repeated enough times will get on the jury. WHO CARES. As Gerry Spence likes to say in his arguments, "If the tiger gets away, the defendant must pay." IAAL.

Cal. Official Civil Jury Instruction 461

Strict Liability for Injury Caused by Wild Animal -- Essential Factual Elements

[Name of plaintiff] claims that [name of defendant]'s [insert type of animal] harmed [him/her] and that [name of defendant] is responsible for that harm.

People who own wild animals are responsible for the harm that these animals cause to others, no matter how carefully they guard or restrain their animals.

To establish [his/her] claim, [name of plaintiff] must prove all of the following:

1. That [name of defendant] owned a [insert type of animal];

2. That [name of plaintiff] was harmed; and

3. That [name of defendant]'s [insert type of animal] was a substantial factor in causing [name of plaintiff]'s harm.

Lions, tigers, bears, elephants, wolves, monkeys, and sharks have been characterized as wild animals. (Rosenbloom v. Hanour Corp. (1998) 66 Cal.App.4th 1477, 1479, fn. 1 [78 Cal.Rptr.2d 686].)

An owner of a wild animal is strictly liable to persons who are injured by the animal: "In such instances the owner is an insurer against the acts of the animal, to one who is injured without fault, and the question of the owner's negligence is not in the case." (Opelt v. Al G. Barnes Co. (1919) 41 Cal.App. 776, 779 [183 P. 241].)

"[I]f the animal which inflicted the injury is vicious and dangerous, known to the defendant to be such, an allegation of negligence on the part of defendant is unnecessary and the averment, if made, may be treated as surplusage." (Baugh v. Beatty (1949) 91 Cal.App.2d 786, 791 [205 P.2d 671].)

A wild animal, of a type to be known to have a vicious nature, is presumed to be vicious. (Baugh, supra, 91 Cal.App.2d at p. 791.) Accordingly, an instruction on the owner's knowledge of its ferocity is unnecessary. (Id. at pp. 791-792.)

Re:Ever heard of STRICT LIABILITY IN TORT?

[Anonymous Coward]

YAAL? Then: what's better than 9,999 lawyers at the bottom of the ocean?

Oblig.

[iminplaya]

Lisa, I want to buy your rock.

Sharks aren't like tigers (Oblig. KITH)

[Anonymous Coward]

Mark: Oh . . . I used to be the captain of my own cruise ship. It was the kind of boat folks rent for weddings, parties, you know, that kind of thing. But on the night in question it had been rented for a prom. Oh, the girls looked so lovely in their dresses, the boys such fine little gentlemen in their tuxedos. They were all drinking and dancing and spiking the punch. I was dizzy with delight when suddenly - my ship sank. We all went into the water. Then came Skoora, picking us off one by one by one by one. Till only I was left. And as he bore down on me, he paused as if to say, "What can I do? I'm a shark. I eat." And then he cut me in half, cut me right in half - my wife measured me, I'm exactly half my former length. But as he swam away with my lower extremeties dangling from his jaw, I swear to god he was crying.

Kevin: Crying?

Mark: Yes, crying. Oh to be sure, he's a brutal killing machine. But he shows more remorse than I've ever seen in a human.

Everyone: . . .Skoora, the gentle shark.
Skoora, Skoora. He's a killer with a broken heart.
Don't blame him! He blames himself.
Don't hate him! He hates himself.
Skoora, Skoora. Skoora the gentle shark.

It's a simple fucking Darwin (with a sadness)...

[TaoJones]

Intoxicated (or just plain stupid) boys taunt tiger. Tiger responds, doing what taunted tigers do. Unfortunately the tiger dies.

WARNING: Do Not Taunt Tiger

[StikyPad]

You'd think they would have read the sign...

WARNING: Pregnant women, the elderly, and children under 10 should avoid prolonged exposure to Tiger.

Caution: Tiger may suddenly accelerate to dangerous speeds.

Tiger contains a liquid core, which, if exposed due to rupture, should not be touched, inhaled, or looked at.

Do not race Tiger on concrete.

Discontinue contact with Tiger if any of the following occurs:

• itching
• vertigo
• dizziness
• tingling in extremities
• loss of balance or coordination
• slurred speech
• temporary blindness
• profuse sweating
• or heart palpitations

If Tiger begins to growl, get away immediately. Seek shelter and cover head.

Tiger may prefer certain types of skin.

When not in use, Tiger should be returned to its special container. Failure to do so relieves the owners of Tiger, San Francisco Zoo, of any and all liability.

DNA of Tiger includes an unknown glowing green substance which fell to Earth, presumably from outer space.

Tigers have been shipped to our troops in Saudi Arabia and are being dropped by our warplanes on Iraq.

Do not taunt Tiger.

Tiger comes with a lifetime warranty.

Re:WARNING: Do Not Taunt Tiger

[darkonc]

They did have that warning -- tattooed to the tiger's chest. ... along with a tattoo that said:
Warning:IfYouCanReadThisThenYouAreFarTooClo

Unfortunately, the tattoo artist was eaten by the tiger before he could finish the second tattoo. His death was never reported to the authorities.

Re:the tiger had superior knowledge of the situati

[Anonymous Coward]

They really hate N-ovell that much there eh?

well

[ClioCJS]

You missed my snapping fingers joke/point, which was a reference to correlation not being causation, and people saying "Ever since i started snapping my fingers, i haven't been attacked by tigers. It's working, see!". Usually this is said in response to an anti-terrorism measure passed by Bush to make people feel safer, and never in context of a story about an actual tiger.

But anyway..... To be serious... If all it takes is looking one in the eye to make it charge you, then that makes it that much more the zoo's fault for not having a safe enclosure made to the nationally recommended height...

strawman argument

[ClioCJS]

Point taken, but that's not what they did. You don't have a reasonable expectation of safety when you are inside a tiger cage. You do have a reasonable expectation of safety when you are in the grounds of a public zoo -- or any other public place. In general, if anything happens to you safety-wise that could have been prevented - you are liable. If you have a 6 foot fence around your pool, but your pool isn't covered, and kids climb the fence, get into the pool, and die (I believe this is the 2nd leading cause of teenage deaths after car accidents) -- Guess what. You're liable.

Re:strawman argument

[Rogerborg]

I need to correct you on something: it wasn't my zoo. I believe that the ambulance you want to chase went that way.

Re:strawman argument

[Raenex]

If you have a 6 foot fence around your pool, but your pool isn't covered, and kids climb the fence, get into the pool, and die (I believe this is the 2nd leading cause of teenage deaths after car accidents) -- Guess what. You're liable. I actually agree that the zoo was at fault for not having the fence at the recommended height, but your example of somebody intruding on your property and killing themselves in your pool is pretty ridiculous. Does personal responsibility mean nothing any more?

Re:strawman argument

[ClioCJS]

Not legally, no. If there's a way from stopping someone from hurting themselves, and you don't take it, you're liable. I'm sorry, but that's how it works. Personal responsibility is a great thing, but according to some people here, simply looking at a tiger is taunting. Certainly nobody is expected to take the "responsibility value" of their very life for simply looking at something - or even danging your legs at a vantage point that is *supposed* to be higher than it can jump. My example was about legal liability, but even in terms of personal responsibility -- They didn't climb over a fence and go into a swimming pool. At worst, they stood on the edge of a fence, and then walked away from the danger. Problem is, the danger was not contained properly.

Re:strawman argument

[Raenex]

I just want to reiterate that I think the zoo is ultimately responsible, since there's a reasonable expectation of containment. My "personal responsibility" wasn't aimed at the alleged taunting, but doing stupid shit like drowning yourself in somebody else's pool. Plus I'm really curious how all these kids are drowning -- they can't swim and jump in the pool??

Final mods!

[FuzzyDaddy]

For the curious, the final mods on the ggp post are:

Insightful +1
Insightful +1
Flamebait -1
Underrated +1
Overrated -1
Insightful +1
Overrated -1
Insightful +1
Overrated -1
Overrated -1
Overrated -1
Insightful +1
Overrated -1

Leaving it at Flamebait, 0

A word on dog behavior

[Anne Honime]

This is absolutely true. When I was a kid we had a female wire hair fox terrier (well fed, may I add). This dog was very friendly, never bit anyone and let young children use her as a horse subsitute. But she had the nasty habit to dig holes about everywhere (that's where the 'terrier' part comes from, I guess), and once her hole led her to our neighbour's chicken encolusre. She killed 30 of them in less than 5 minutes. Extremely effective. We had to buy all the chicken ;-)

You are a complete moron.

[jotaeleemeese]

Any contraption intended to keep a person safe, that requires human subjective calculations to keep the user safe is badly designed.

You should not need to think about the danger if the contraption is designed correctly and it is used according to instructions.

Contraptions of any kind protecting human life should be immune to human error.

As for your example of people walking behind fenced areas and hopping that their good judgment will be enough to protect them, well, what can I say, myopic idiotic views like this cause accidents.

Re:You are a complete moron.

[Tanuki64]

Due to your 'moron' I should not answer to you. Your are simply not worth it. However, there might be others, who read this. For those is this answer.

To other possible readers: In a certain way my parent is right. Contraptions of any kind should be immune to human error. This is valid for the average human, who is no professional in the field under view. However, he is still wrong. He does not distinguish between amateurs and professionals.

It simply is not possible to create 100% fool proof contraptions or devices. Partly because it is impossible, partly it is too costly. Usually, as long nothing happens, this is well accepted.

Therefore professionals get training. An x-ray device is inherently dangerous. Improperly used it can kill. It is hardly possible to design such a device that if fulfills a its task, is totally fool proof to use. Therefore people have to undergo intense training to be allowed to operate it.

People are not allowed to enter the tracks in a train station, because it is dangerous. Railroad worker have to do it from time to time to inspect the racks. There is no mechanism, which makes it totally impossible that train can come, while a train worker is inspecting the tracks. Why not? It should be technically feasible to do something like this. Probably because after a proper training the remaining risk can be neglected.

There are many examples, where professionals have to so things, which are too dangerous for anyone else. The only difference is that professionals got the proper training to recognize potential dangerouse situationes and act appropriately.

A zookeeper is a professional in his line of work, too. So there is as in many other cases no need to have the absolute possible amount of safety, which would be necessary when untrained amateurs are required to handle this contraption. The only way the zoo is responsible for the accident is when it did not make sure that all personnel is properly trained for their job. If it did, then the zookeeper was inattentive and it was her own fault.