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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."
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.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
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)