San Francisco Zoo Tiger Tragedy: That's Entertainment!

The Christmas Day killing of a young man and the mauling of two others by an escaped, endangered Siberian tiger, as well as the shooting of the tiger, Tatiana, at the AZA-accredited San Francisco Zoo, were accidents waiting to happen. Tatiana, a four-year-old female born at the Denver Zoo and sent to San Francisco for breeding purposes, had also mauled the arm of a zoo employee two years ago. With this latest incident, it should now be much clearer to the public that a zoo is no place for wild animals.

Zoos are entertainment, not educational, venues designed to amuse the public and make money without providing any benefit to the incarcerated animals. Tigers in particular suffer from captivity, and sadly, there are more captive tigers than wild tigers in the world. And the results have been predictable, with over 200 recorded accidents of tigers escaping, injuring or killing people.

Animal advocacy groups PETA and In Defense of Animals (IDA)agree that tigers should not be zoo inmates and they want the San Francisco tiger exhibit permanently closed. A 2004 Oxford University study concluded that large, wide-ranging carnivores such as lions and tigers are particularly inappropriate for captivity and inevitably display neurotic behavior.

Elliot Katz of IDA has even suggested that the San Francisco Zoo be bulldozed and the land used for orphaned animals or for animals with no natural habitat left.

Sadly, the message that zoos convey to the public is that it's OK to grab animals out of their natural habitat and cage them so that humans can gawk at and taunt them. The reality is that ten adult animals are killed to capture just one young animal for a zoo. Poachers love zoos, for obvious reasons.

The minimal species preservation that goes on at zoos is aimed at improving the birth rate and maintaining even more captive animals. In fact, zoos do very little to protect endangered species, because most of the captive animals are not endangered. And natural habitat release programs are practically nonexistent and extremely difficult to carry out with animals bred or reared in captivity.

The World Society for the Protection of Animals has reported that only 1,200 out of 10,000 zoos are registered for captive breeding and wildlife conservation, and only 2% of the world's threatened or endangered species are registered in breeding programs. Zoos tend to breed whatever species the public takes a fancy to. And the surplus is often sold to smaller zoos, breeders, canned-hunt game farms, research labs, or even exotic meat and hide processors.

If there is a zoo close to you, visit it only if you think you can effect change by reporting zoo abuses to animal humane associations. You can become a "zoo checker", observing instances of zoochosis, inadequate housing, and unsanitary conditions. Otherwise, try to visit animals where they actually live, or watch wildlife programs and films, and learn more about them through books describing the various species.

You should also report any taunting or teasing of the animals on the part of zoo patrons to zoo officials, because it's abusive to the animals and it can be dangerous and even deadly for humans. Two of the victims of the San Francisco Zoo tiger attack were allegedly teasing Tatiana and the other tigers in her enclosure before she leapt over the wall and attacked them.

I recall an old Twilight Zone episode in which astronauts crash land on an unknown planet. One of them dies, but the other is rescued by the outwardly friendly inhabitants. The astronaut is escorted to a house that looks similar to the one he left back on Planet Earth, along with a very attractive female companion, and he’s told he can live there indefinitely. He’s grateful and happy until he notices there are bars on the windows and faces gaping in at him and laughing. He then realizes he's about to become a permanent exotic exhibit for the planet’s curious onlookers. This is what happens to wild animals every day at zoos.

As someone who used to volunteer at the San Francisco Zoo, I’m familiar with the construction of the majority of the exhibits there. They are over 60 years old, of the grim concrete and steel variety, and are completely unnatural environments for the unfortunate inmates that are on display.

The San Francisco Zoo closed its elephant exhibit in 2005 after two of its four elephants died prematurely within a month of each other. It then sent its two surviving elephants, Lulu and Tinkerbelle, to a northern California wildlife sanctuary to live out their days because they had serious physical and mental health problems caused by being forced to live in their pathetically tiny concrete habitat. Tinkerbelle had to be euthanized eight months later after she collapsed and was unable to walk because of terminal foot deterioration and arthritis from a lifetime of walking on concrete.

The zoo has suffered a number of animal deaths and accidents in the past few years as well as serious administrative problems (see links below). At the very least it should send its big cats away to a sanctuary, now that this latest, horrific accident has killed both a human and a tiger.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2008/01/03/MN9TU8AGC.DTL

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/12/30/MNNQU63KP.DTL

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/12/29/MNO6U4RBS.DTL