Of course you didn’t. And witnesses will confirm that you were politely observing the animals at the San Francisco Zoo while thoughtfully considering their majesty– but more on that later. Finally, the parents of mauling victim Carlos Sousa received the phone call they pleaded for:

One of two young men who survived the Christmas Day tiger attack at the San Francisco Zoo that killed their 17-year-old friend told the teen’s mother that they had not taunted the big cat, the mother said today.

“He said, ‘We didn’t do nothing. We were just normal kids at the zoo,’ ” Marilza Sousa said after talking with her son’s friend Paul Dhaliwal, 19, of San Jose.

“That’s what happened, just dancing, talking, laughing like normal kids,” said Sousa, whose son Carlos Sousa Jr. was killed by the Siberian tiger. “I believe him.”

…The brothers have so far refused to speak publicly about the incident. Sousa said Paul Dhaliwal had told her he has remained silent because he is still tormented by the incident, not because his attorney has told him not to talk. [sfgate]

Both brothers attended Sousa’s funeral, which is what their friend’s grieving parents hoped for.

But there’s still more to this story and it contradicts the recounting of events provided by the Dhaliwal brothers. A witness came forward, to describe what the boys were doing that day at the zoo:

Jennifer Miller, who was at the zoo with her husband and two children that ill-fated Christmas afternoon, said she saw four young men at the big-cat grottos – and three of them were teasing the lions a short time before the tiger’s bloody rampage that killed 17-year-old Carlos Sousa Jr.

“The boys, especially the older one, were roaring at them. He was taunting them,” the San Francisco woman said. “They were trying to get that lion’s attention. … The lion was bristling, so I just said, ‘Come on, let’s get out of here’ because my kids were disturbed by it.”

…Her family was looking at the lions when the young men stopped beside them at the big-cat grottos – five outdoor exhibits attached to the Lion House. The young men started roaring at the lions and acting “boisterous” to get their attention, said Miller, who added that she watched the four for five minutes or so a little after 4 p.m. “It was why we left,” she said. “Their behavior was disturbing. They kept doing it.”

Sousa refrained from such tactics, Miller said. “He wasn’t roaring. He wasn’t taunting them,” she recalled. “He kept looking at me apologetically like, ‘I’m sorry, I know we are being stupid.’ “ [sfgate]

Continue reading →

Ever since a rare Siberian tiger named Tatiana escaped its enclosure at the San Francisco Zoo (my first zoo!) and mauled two brothers after killing a third man, news sites have listed the story in their various “top ten” boxes, for most emailed, most popular and most blogged. Who knew there was a Sepia angle to this captivating, contradiction-filled tale? An anonymous tipster did, and they just rang up the mutiny; it turns out the two survivors are desi.

First, the deets:

The big cat exhibit at the San Francisco Zoo was cordoned off as a crime scene Wednesday as investigators tried to determine whether a 300-pound Siberian tiger that killed a visitor escaped from its high-walled pen on its own or got help from someone, inadvertent or otherwise.

Police shot the animal to death after a Christmas Day rampage that began when the tiger escaped from an enclosure surrounded by what zoo officials said are an 18-foot wall and a 20-foot moat. Two other visitors were severely mauled…

One zoo official insisted the tiger did not get out through an open door and must have climbed or leaped out. But Jack Hanna, former director of the Columbus Zoo and a frequent guest on TV, said such a leap would be an unbelievable feat, and “virtually impossible.”

“There’s something going on here. It just doesn’t feel right to me,” he said. “It just doesn’t add up to me.”

Instead, he speculated that visitors might have been fooling around and might have taunted the animal and perhaps even helped it get out by, say, putting a board in the moat. [KTVU]

Tatiana is the same tiger who attacked a zookeeper almost exactly a year ago, during a public feeding. In that situation, the Zoo was found to be at fault, not the tiger, which is why she wasn’t put down. As many have pointed out on message boards and in news articles, “she was just acting like a tiger”. In this latest, deadly attack, some have asked why an animal which is extremely endangered wasn’t tranquilized instead of killed. The zoo had a team which was capable of that, but the police responded first and did what they felt they had to:

The body of Carlos Sousa Jr, 17, was found with a slashed throat near the exhibit.

The other two victims, brothers age 19 and 23, who accompanied Mr Sousa to the zoo, were said to be present when the tiger escaped.

It is thought they fled, leaving a trail of blood which the tiger followed…

The four-year-old cat, Tatiana, attacked one of the brothers before police were able to distract the animal and shoot it dead. [Telegraph]

There has been much conjecture about whether a board was lowered to help the tiger (!), whether they dangled body parts over the enclosure to tease it, and whether blood and a shoe were found inside the tiger’s stomping grounds. Finally, there are a few answers: Continue reading →

Whose God is it anyways? posted a tip so arresting, I had to read it for myself…and then inflict it upon you. 😀 Blame him, he started it! Via The Telegraph:

Packs of stray dogs which roam the streets of New Delhi should be rounded up and sent to Korea for making soup, one of the city’s exasperated councillors has suggested.

Wow, that’s some level of exasperation. Any Delhi-area mutineers want to chime in about this?

India’s capital is suffering from a 300,000-strong plague of feral dogs who scavenge the city’s open rubbish dumps, hunting in packs and terrorising cyclists and pedestrians who venture into the city at night.

At a meeting to canvass measures to curb stray dog numbers ahead of the 2010 Commonwealth Games one local councillor, Mohan Prashad Bharadwaj, ventured the “Korean option” after saying he’d read that nation was fond of dog-meat.

Um, I guess that’s…innovative.

A dog-meat soup called boshintang is popular in Korea, especially on the three “dog days” of summer on the lunar calendar. Koreans believe the meat helps boost stamina and virility.

I swear, every unique food is meant to be the culinary equivalent to wiagra. This next idea is so funny, it’s cute:

Another councillor wondered if the dogs could be drugged during daylight hours “so that they keep sleeping all day long” while a third suggested rounding up the animals and trucking them into the countryside.

The extreme nature of the suggestions reflects a growing impatience with the city’s inability to combat the stray dog menace after it emerged that a three-year sterilisation drive advocated by animal rights activists had failed.

When I first read this article, I wondered about the “Bob Barker“-option, i.e. spaying and neutering…until I got to that part.

Mindful of Mahatma Gandhi’s adage that “a country is known by the way it treats its animals” the city is hoping to avoid the kind of brutal cull that Athens resorted to ahead of the 2004 Olympic Games.

So shipping dogs to Korea for soup is a better way for India to be known? Not judging, just surprised, that’s all.

However the dogs are a serious health hazard, with more than 200 Delhi residents dying every year from rabies contracted through dog bites.

Yeah, I don’t think drugging them during the daylight hours or shipping them off to the “country” (wtf, like people in rural areas are immune to rabies?) is going to work. It’ll be interesting to see how this gets resolved. Continue reading →