Everyone knows about the 3 teenagers attacked by the rare Siberian tiger in the San Francisco Zoo on December 26. One boy killed, the 2 others mauled. News reports said that the wall was too short, and that’s why the tiger was able to leap out. But details about the 2 injured boys have been totally missing from reports, and I was anxious to hear if the 3 knew each other and as they seem to be the only eyewitnesses, what they had to say about how the tiger escaped.
Well, it turns out that the reason there were no details from the brothers – young men, really – is because they won’t SAY anything. The younger boy killed was their friend, as it happens, who died trying to save their lives. Yet they won’t say a word! Very suspicious. And according to this Daily News report, they won’t release cell phone records!
Two brothers mauled by a tiger at the San Francisco Zoo on Christmas Day have refused to allow police to examine their cell phones for possible text messages or photos believed taken the day of tiger Tatiana’s escape.
[snip]
The brothers have refused to speak publicly – or to Sousa’s parents – about the incident. For police and city officials to examine the cell phones, they would need a warrant. To obtain the warrant, they would need to show probable cause.
There was also a vodka bottle in the car. Who here doesn’t believe now that they were taunting the tiger? Boys will be boys, but as a result, one boy is dead, as well as Tatiana, the tiger. Now I hate them. I hope the zoo sues them, as well as the dead boy’s parents. And the information they are withholding could be very useful to other zoos and naturalists, as well as helping to repair the reputation of this zoo.
I had to laugh, though, at how the article ended. The San Francisco Zoo said the zoo was closed again last Friday because of the big rain storm, and all the animals were herded safely into their enclosures:
LaMarca said the rhinos and kangaroos refused to go inside and were allowed to remain out in the rain. “A rhino does what it wants to do,” she said.
UPDATE It’s nice to be right. Look.
All three victims had marijuana in their systems, and Paul Dhaliwal’s blood alcohol level was 0.16 — twice the legal limit for driving, according to the affidavit.
“Clearly there’s the lesson to be learned here,” said zoo spokesman Sam Singer. “The lesson is that it’s not a good idea to drink, it’s not a good idea to be high on dope, and it’s not a good idea to taunt a man-eating tiger.”
Authorities were weighing whether to seek criminal charges against the Dhaliwals, but their lawyer, Mark Geragos, said they have presented no evidence of a crime.
[snip]
Bekoff said taunting is common at zoos. He said students in his animal behavior courses during the 1990s found that 20 to 25 percent of zoo visitors taunted the animals — especially predators such as lions and tigers — by mimicking, yelling, throwing things at them or otherwise aggravating them.
I’ve been to zoos many times, and I never saw anybody taunting the animals. Do they count making faces at monkeys taunting? How annoying and juvenile. I bet they did something more, though. It’s not like this tiger hadn’t seen hundreds of thousands of other people, and he didn’t make a superhuman effort to kill THEM.
