Tiger goes on rampage in San Francisco Zoo
And with that, we’re back from Christmas. (!) I know this isn’t really LA news, but this piece of news is all over the place nationwide, and it means an extra something to me because I used to live by the zoo and would walk there all the time on free zoo day (the first Wednesday of the month). The San Francisco Zoo is open 365 days a year, and yesterday, on Christmas Day, a tiger somehow escaped from its habitat and roamed the east side of the park, killing one man in front of the enclosure and wandering to a cafe 50 yards away before attacking two more men.
This happened shortly after closing, which is why more people weren’t hurt by the tiger, and when police arrived on the scene they found the tiger still mauling one of the three victims. The tiger looked up at the police and started to go back to her victim when they opened fire and killed the animal with their handguns. This Siberian tiger, named Tatiana, had actually mauled a keeper last year at this time. The zoo had daily feedings of the big cats at 2pm every day, and while a female keeper was throwing meat to the animals, Tatiana reached through the bars and snagged the woman’s arm, trying to pull her into the enclosure. This happened in front of a large crowd, including lots of children, and while the woman was eventually pulled away, she did lose her arm.
Today the zoo is closed while the police and zoo officials further examine what happened, but I have the feeling that at the end of it all it’ll boil down to human error of some sort. Initially reports said that all four tigers had escaped, which leads me to think someone saw an open door somewhere. All the same, you can read more here through the LA Times, and read the updates as they’ve happened on Metroblogging San Francisco.
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