I watched him with his bears, tigers, and snakes…it was simply amazing. He had a huge heart and a passion for animal care and education. He made it possible for my Environmental Education Center to have a reptile center and brought me local snakes he had saved from time to time.

My thoughts and prayers are with his family in this tragic time.

Christa Williams

Here’s a quote from the Big Cat Rescue blog: “Safari’s Interactive Animal Sanctuary is not a sanctuary, but rather, a part of the problem. Safari’s Interactive Animal Sanctuary at 26881 E 58, east of Broken Arrow, Wagoner County, OK is home to 27 big cats. Former keepers have warned for years that the practices there would lead to injuries, escapes and death. SIAS’ website is covered in the typically ignorant photos of the President, Lori Ensign bottle feeding tigers and walking them on leashes. That kind of irresponsible behavior can only lead to tragedy for humans as well as the animals when they pay the ultimate price. See SanctuaryStandards.com to see that this is no sanctuary.”

I did go to sanctuarystandards.com. The guidelines there clearly state: “Animals shall not be handled in any manner in public view that may portray wild animals as tractable or as pets”.

Yet there are many photos on the The Safari’s Exotic Wildlife Sanctuary’s website of people treating wild animals like pets.

Was this tragic incident a one-time occurrence? Did Peter Getz just sort of coincidentally get fatally attacked the one time that he entered Rocky’s enclosure, alone, while Rocky was feeding? Or was this something that had occurred so frequently at the facility that everyone had sort of let their guard down? There was a group of schoolchildren touring the facility that day … did this happen in their presence? Was Mr. Getz maybe just trying to show them how “tame” Rocky is? These and many other troubling questions surround this tragedy.

As to Rocky himself: Lisa Ensign, in an interview, said “I used to ride Rocky like riding a pony”. So first of all, that means he was her pet … but, why did she stop? Was it because Rocky turned aggressive? Did he, like most big cats, rebel against his human “parents” as he began to reach sexual maturity? In the videos I have seen of Rocky, it’s not clear whether he has been declawed. Declawing is the amputation of the final joint of the cat’s digits (“fingers and toes”). Most people who keep big cats as “pets” have them declawed. Declawed cats often become biters. Declawing also causes arthritic changes in cats’ limbs. The cats develop chronic pain which gets worse as they grow older. Rocky is said to be 12 years old. He has a pronounced limp in his front leg in the videos that I’ve seen. Ligers are so big and heavy that they often develop joint problems. Possibly he lashed out because he was in pain?

Should Rocky be destroyed? In a perfect world, the answer is no. But it’s true that animals who have severely injured their human caretakers often become much more dangerous after that first attack. After they have put a person on the ground and actually injured or killed that person, they realize that they can. Even dogs, with thousands of generations of domestication behind them, often lose their inhibitions about attacking people once they have injured a person in anger. Big cats have no such inhibitions in the first place. Rocky should be very carefully evaluated, and many factors taken into consideration, before the decision is made to destroy him, or not.

My personal opinion is that he should not be destroyed, but he should be permanently taken off public exhibition and retired to a secure facility to live out his days, provided he is not suffering from some medical condition that makes his life painful.

I am not going to judge the safety precautions of the facility without finding out more hard information, but like I said in the other post, these are not pets. Even captive bred big cats and even other animals such as chimps and elephants are wild animals. No matter how tame they may seem, care must always be exercised and respect shown towards them. To me, it seems that in this case, even that wasn’t enough. That being said, sadly enough, these captive environments are going to likely be the last bastion for the survival of some big cat species. I truly find it sad that this incident is going to bring down so much negative publicity on such establishments and that the cat will likely be destroyed when in the end, it was just being what it is.

That being said, I am against any purposeful breeding of tigers and lions. I tend to frown on intentional creation of hybrids in general (except in a very few special cases), especially between species that would not have the opportunity to do so in the wild. These ligers and tigons often suffer from psychological problems due to sets of parents with such different social structures. In addition, ligers and tigons, indeed hybrids in general, do not always benefit from “hybrid vigor” (enhanced hardiness due to the mix of new genetic material). On the contrary, some hybrids such as ligers can suffer from an increased incidence of certain cancers and other health problems. Ligers, for instance, can suffer from joint and other problems due to their extreme giganticism. It’s sad to me that someone would purposefully experiment around with mixing two species that in this case would not be interbreeding in the wild.

I realize that this sanctuary was not involved with creating this liger, I just thought I would add some thoughts. It is tragic that the people trying to help this cat had to suffer for it.

Also, any visitors feeding the cats were given frozen chicken legs, and a pipe. The leg is inserted in one end of the pipe, and inserted through both fences at a height no higher than (I believe) five feet. This was to prevent the cats attempting to scale the fence, if they were to realize that they could indeed climb them.

How affective this method is, I don’t know. It worried me a bit, and the outer fence is only around six feet in height.

I remember Rocky as the massive animal who walked back and forth, rolling bowling balls and in general, appearing gentle and accustomed to human interaction. However, if I remember correctly, this was the same liger who snarled at my husband upon sight. The volunteer informed us that he was kept in a texas apartment as a cub, by a man whom they suspect abused him severely. Therefore, Rocky has an intense hatred of men, particularly those wearing baseball caps and/or sunglasses.

I have met Mr. Getz, and am saddened at his passing. I don’t understand what would possess him to do what he did, as he should have known that even the gentlest creature, as a giant, can do great harm without meaning to. As Lori said, Rocky could break a person’s foot simply by stepping on it.

Again, my intention in posting here was to relay what I have seen of the sanctuary staff. I never saw anyone in all my visits with them, open a gate to feed any of the animals.

If you went to India today, you would find that there are less tigers living there than there are in the state of Texas, where the laws and regulations are incredibly loose. There are probably 10 people or more that are critically injured [every year], in some cases killed, by tigers, and it’s happening in our own country.”

I didn’t realize there are ligers in the wild. It’s a liger, not a tiger.

Secondly, while I am not a fan of predators like a tiger or lion in a zoo (simply because you can tell they are meant to have a lot of room to roam), as long as there are poachers and ignorant individuals hunting them, they need all the places to live they can find.

If this was human error, it is a sad story. But it does happen. That in itself does not mean that the entire facility is poorly run. Then again, it could.

Is there any word on the fate of the liger? Will it be put down?

I watched several news videos last night where the sanctuary owner, Lori Ensign, was being interviewed about this incident, and I got a very negative impression of her based on those. I got the impression that she was trying to downplay the lack of safety precautions at her facility.

I feel terrible for the man who was killed. I wonder if it will ever be known whether he was in that pen without “permission” or whether that was S.O.P. at that facility.