The zoo had been made aware that the tigers could get their paws up over the top of that 12 1/2 foot wall. A zoo employee said that they did all the time. That was years before the tigress known as Tatiana was even born. In all those years, they never took the possibility of an escape seriously. The zoo’s complacency cost a young man and a young tigress their lives.

This case should make everyone question whether zookeepers ever really know the true extent of the physical capabilities of the creatures in their custody. Previous posters commenting in this thread have pointed out that no tiger had ever escaped this particular enclosure in the 70-some years since it was built– that is, until now. All standards or specifications for safety are subject to change as soon as they are proven wrong.

The only 100% certain safety standard would be to completely abstain from confining wild animals in enclosures for visitation by the public. Are we willing to live in a risk-free world without zoos where the only way to visit nature is by video or Internet web-cam?

P.S. - After scores of decades keeping tigers in captivity, zoo experts surprised by this event demonstrate that they do not yet fully understand how to ensure the safety of both the tiger and human visitors. Presuming somebody somewhere captures a live specimen of an elusive cryptid, for sake of argument, consider a Bigfoot creature, this demonstrates that we cannot possibly know how to contain such an animal with no risk to its own health or safety nor to ourselves.

Needless to say, there should be swift legal action against the zoo, if charges were pressed, but none for the kids. Period. Taunting or not, they did nothing, (legally), wrong. It’s a shame one of them had to die, but that’s the price you pay for hanging with stupid friends, and, on the flip-side, that’s the financial price the zoo should have to pay for sub-standard containment facilities.

In no way am I excusing these young men for torturing the animals - if they were torturing animals. If they ARE guilty of torturing or teasing the big cats, they may even be partially responsible for their friend’s death. But are they legally responsible? That is a horse of another color.

It’s easy to point the finger at them and say they should be charged with manslaughter; they apparently, from their reported behavior both before and after the tiger incident, are not the type of persons for whom one readily feels sympathy. But are the brothers guilty of manslaughter? Are they even guilty of animal cruelty? There are some people who say they saw them teasing animals, but even the term “teasing” is open to interpretation. And where is the legal line at which teasing becomes criminal behavior?

First, charges would have to be filed, and if there isn’t any real evidence indicating criminal behavior, just an eyewitness account or two, it’s unlikely that any charges will be forthcoming. Eyewitnesses can be mistaken under the best of circumstances, and it was near dark and closing time at the zoo.

Next, what about manslaughter? Manslaughter is a very specific term. If the brothers had cut a lock and deliberately let the tiger out, or if they had thrown a board into the moat and the tiger climbed out on it, maybe that would lead to a manslaughter charge. I don’t know; I’m not a lawyer. But even if the brothers were teasing a tiger, that tiger leaped out of its cage without their help, and they probably would not face charges of manslaughter. You or I may feel that they would be morally responsible, but that does not automatically translate to legal liability. Charging a person with manslaughter is a serious business. A reasonable person would assume that the tigers could not leap out of their enclosure, precisely because none had escaped in 70 years. The brothers in that case could not be expected to think that their actions would lead to the tiger’s escape. The public has a reasonable expectation of safety when they visit a zoo.

Then too, the zoo had been told years ago that on at least one occasion a tiger had leaped up and got its paw over the top of the moat, on the visitors’ side. The zoo did nothing about it; they did not even acknowledge the complaint of the woman who witnessed it, even though it distressed her enough to cancel her membership to the zoo, and she filed her complaint in writing. Furthermore, from what a zoo employee told that woman when they, too, witnessed the incident, the tigers “did that all the time”. So the zoo knew, or should have known, that the tigers’ enclosure was potentially inadequate to contain them securely. Tatiana had seriously injured a keeper last year, and that, too, was partially a result of lax cage design (although the careless inattention of the injured person was a big contributing factor).

I love animals. Especially cats. I have spent my whole life with animals, and a large portion of my life working with them. I love zoos. But you cannot work around large, potentially dangerous animals for long without facing the fact that they can kill you. Even a dog can do an incredible amount of damage to a human being, and a tiger is magnitudes more powerful and deadly than any dog. Every AZA-accredited zoo must have plans in place for potential animal escapes, and those plans, like it or not, have to include provision for using deadly force - instantly - to protect human life when circumstances call for it. An escaped tiger that has already killed or mauled someone is such a circumstance. The zoo dropped the ball there too; the police had to come in and kill the tiger.

treeclaw, you said “The zoo is not a play ground for children. Active toddlers should be under adult supervision who should prevent screaming and chasing around. It’s a great way to teach people and children early on how to behave around wild animals.”

The zoo is indeed a playground for children! Zoos have playgrounds, statues for kids to climb on, and all kinds of activities where children are encouraged to run around shrieking and playing. Certainly parents should keep an eye on their children and supervise their behavior. And zoos are great places to teach kids how to behave around animals. Parents should indeed use the zoo’s educational resources to teach children how to respect animals. But kids are naturally excited to be around animals -they’re kids! The zoo must take childish exuberance into account when designing their facilities. No parent should have to feel that they are risking their children’s lives when they take them to the zoo, no matter how boisterous they are.

You are entitled to your opinion, treeclaw, and I respect that. You do seem like a true animal lover. I am too.

The bottom line, though, is that the tiger got out of its enclosure under its own power, and it killed one man and injured two others. It is not even known for sure that the brothers were teasing the tigers. I think they probably were, but people in San Francisco are just as entitled to be presumed innocent until proven guilty as those of us in the rest of the country.

Whatever the brothers may be guilty of, the zoo failed its responsibility to ensure the public’s - and the tigers’ - safety.

think about this;

if what they did is considered a felony in California then by law they are guilty of first degree murder. if your committing a felony and as a result of that action some one dies then your responsible for that death even if you didn’t kill them your self.

like i said before what ever happend to personal responsibility?

When I was in college I used to work at a Zoo during my summers off. I was just a maintenance man basically, but everyone was trained on what to do in the case of a dangerous animal escaping. What irks me the most about this topic is that it seems like the Zoo was caught with their pants down or something. In the Zoo I worked at there were several “Teams” that were supposed to grab a tranq gun and a normal rifle. There were several of them in case one team couldn’t get to their guns. Basically the idea was that they’d try to tranquilize the animal first, but if it put any person in danger of being mauled or killed it was to be killed.

I was under the impression that this was fairly common practice or that it was at least similar to what other Zoos did. In any case none of the above was part of my job, I was to go hide in a building somewhere helping customers find a safe place if I could. My point being, it doesn’t seem like the Zoo handled this escape very well at all as it was the police who ended up dealing with the animal, where were the Zoo employees? Did they not have any plans for when a dangerous animal escaped?

I think Kittenz summed it up the best. Regardless of what the 3 or 4 guys were doing around the Tigers the Tiger should of never been able to escape in the first place. The Zoo had to of known the wall was too short, as they’ve been Accredited (SP?), meaning they’ve been inspected to get that status which as I understand it is so they can buy and trade more exotic animals. Being an older Zoo shouldn’t of given them the right to have laxer inspections. This isn’t like a docile deer enclosure (although deer can harm or even kill if the right conditions are met), this is an animal with a good probability of attacking someone to maul or kill, these walls should meet the minimum requirements.

Someone needs to get in trouble for this, in my opinion the Zoo needs to be fined, and the people doing the inspections letting walls like this get by should be fired. Likely the Zoo will be sued and there probably is a case there, however it’s also likely the Zoo will lose lots and lots of money by this suit if it happens, and unfortunately that’ll hurt the animals in the Zoo as well as there will be less money for new items in their enclosures, as well as probably no possibility for larger more secure enclosures. I could be wrong about animals being the real victims of the suit, as I’m not sure how much a Zoo like San Fransisco brings in each year and how much they have to spend already. I kind of went on a longer spiel then I thought I would, so in short, I feel what the 3 or 4 guys did was wrong, but they didn’t deserve being Mauled and Killed (especially if it turns out the one killed was just trying to help his friends), I feel Kittenz is dead on.

I know exactly what you mean kittenz.