Maybe...just MAYBE...Siberian tigers shouldn't be held in captivity in the first place.

[Amerigo Vespucci]

Escaped tiger kills man at San Francisco zoo

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071226/ts_nm/usa_tiger_dc

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - An escaped tiger killed a visitor at San Francisco Zoo and mauled two other men on Tuesday, a year after the same animal attacked a park employee, officials said.

The Siberian tiger fatally attacked the unidentified man just after the zoo's 5 p.m. (8 p.m. EST closing time. It was shot and killed by police while it was on top of another victim, said zoo spokeswoman Lora LaMarca.

She did not have details about the victims, but reports said the dead man, aged 23, was attacked near an outdoor tiger enclosure. The two injured men were in a cafe about 300 yards away.

They were in "stable but critical condition" at San Francisco General Hospital, said Lt. Ken Smith, a spokesman with the San Francisco Fire Dept. Local news radio KCBS said they suffered cuts and slashes all over their bodies.



Tony, a 10-year-old Siberian tiger, plays with his pumpkin as his sister Emily looks on in his pool at the San Francisco Zoo on Halloween, 2002.
(Susan Ragan SR/ME/Reuters)

[MonkeyFunk]

1. It would be nice if it weren't necessary

but there are so few in the wild, they'd shortly go extinct otherwise.

[Orsino]

4. Holding them in captivity won't prevent their extinction, either.

But I believe that having them on display may help slow that process.

[MonkeyFunk]

5. well,

if there are tigers in captivity, then they're not extinct.

[Orsino]

7. Heh.

Yeah, not quite, but unless a viable breeding population exists, the difference is moot.

[MonkeyFunk]

13. I believe

there is a viable breeding population in captivity already.

[Orsino]

14. I've heard that, too...

...but it depends on zoos being able to exchange animals (or zygotes) and doing so. There is no single viable population in captivity, and with the End of Oil, I have serious doubts about this continuing long-term.

What I suspect will happen is that fewer and fewer zoos will participate, with fewer and fewer animals, as tigers in the wild approach extinction. Humanity will find more pressing concerns.

[pitohui]

18. technically they are extinct if there are no tigers in the wild

if a species only exists in captivity, it is considered extinct, at least "extinct in the wild" -- that's what i always heard anyway (?)

example, the spix macaw is extinct with the last three birds disappearing around 2000 but i'm pretty sure that there are still a few survivors in private hands in europe, at least i've seen published pleas for owners of these birds to register them for captive breeding -- introducing them into the wild is impossible at this time as every time was tried or the last of the wild birds found they were stolen right out of the tree -- but maybe one day, who knows


i still think species should be preserved, once they're gone, they're gone, at least if there is a captive population, there is some hope of reintroducing them somewhere at some time when we have a more realistic grip on resources and human numbers

[MonkeyFunk]

19. What about the California Condor?

[pitohui]

21. it was extinct and now it ain't extinct but that happy ending wasn't always for certain

there was a period of time for several years when the california condor was extinct in the wild

some species are easier to breed and reintroduce into the wild than others

i could say to you, what about the thick-billed parrot, guess what, after all the breeding, after all the huge numbers of breeding birds (many more than the condor), it's still extinct in arizona

captivity gives a chance but it's never a guarantee

i agree the chance should be given, it's certainly better than nothing and we have a responsibility to those we have destroyed

[MonkeyFunk]

24. It was extinct but now it's not?

Reminds me of a news report I saw once about a toreador who'd gotten gored. The report said "He was pronounced dead at the hospital, but later upgraded to critical."

[Critters2]

26. The effect on the ecology is the same.

The point in protecting a species from extinction is to maintain the ecology. Tigers in zoos do not help the environment to which the tiger is native. It just makes something interesting for suburbanites to go stare at.

[MonkeyFunk]

30. city-dwellers don't go to zoos?

Then why do they tend to put them there?

[formerrepuke]

2. Siberian tigers in the wild are close to being poached into extinction...

Big cats are dangerous (just ask Siegfried & Roy), but there are places where big cat 'castoffs' can thrive in security (and hopefully where they cannot harm visitors), such as Tippi Hedren's Shambala Preserve:

http://www.shambala.org/

[Marrah_G]

3. Captivity may be the only place they survive

Also seeing them and being educated about them help children and adults to learn the importance of saving these magnificent creatures natural habitats.

[LeftyMom]

6. Now that's crazy talk.

We need zoos to maintain outdated Victorian notions about man's domination of other species.

[MonkeyFunk]

25. In a perfect world

there'd be no poachers and plenty of habitat. We don't live in such a world.

If keeping species alive through captivity is the only alternative to extinction, it's worth doing.

[Critters2]

27. And what purpose do they serve then?

Tigers weren't put here for your entertainment. The first priority should be protecting their habitat, not breeding them in zoos.

[Mendocino]

8. Aldo Leopold, the esteemed ecologist, once wrote,

concerning passenger pigeons in the US:

"Our grandfathers were less well-housed, well- fed and well-clothed than we are. The strivings by which they bettered their lot are also those which deprived us of pigeons. Perhaps we now grieve because we are not sure in our hearts, that we have gained by the exchange. The gadgets of industry bring us more comforts than the pigeons did, but do they add as much to the spring?"

(passenger pigeons were once the most abundant birds on earth, an estimated 200 billion in the US alone. They went extinct in the wild in 1900 and the last specimen died in the Cincinnati Zoo in 1914. Hunting, commercial and sport, plus habitat destruction killed them off)

So are tigers or elephants or whales destined to the same fate? We can't just save a species in a zoo, we need to also save its habitat. Captive breeding programs are wonderful things, but they are not enough.

Mr. Leopold also wrote; "We console ourselves with comfortable fallacy that a single museum-piece will do, ignoring the clear dictum of history that a species must be saved in many places if it is to be saved at all."

[Critters2]

28. Thank you. Aldo Leopold is a hero of mine. nt

[JVS]

9. Captivity is like the witness protection program for endangered animals

[Connonym]

11. good analogy

it's life but is it a life worth living? I have very mixed emotions on the notion of zoos.

[TZ]

22. In good zoos yes...

Do you think its good for tiger's to end up like this? If this happened in a zoo think about how often this happens in the wild...

http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSPEK22332320071223?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews

Good zoos give their animals plenty of habitat.

[Bake]

10. "That tiger didn't go crazy ..."

"That tiger went TIGER!" Chris Rock

Bake

[flvegan]

12. So long as people

with their bullshit "because I can" and "because I want to" selfish, greedy attitudes continue to think that animals only serve a purpose on this planet to please humans in some way, there will be animals like this in captivity.

We wouldn't need captive breeding and "conservation" if people would stop killing, hunting and poaching animals to their extinction. Developing over their habitat. Fuck the animal, it's all about me, me, me.

But then, who gives a shit. It's our planet and we have dominion over it and all that's on it. We'll kill a species until it reaches critical mass, THEN we'll care...maybe.

[Critters2]

29. Coudn't agree more. See my post #27

Great minds think alike :hi:

[KamaAina]

15. "a year after the same animal attacked a park employee"?

And what, may I inquire to ask, was it still doing there after that?

I've been to the SF Zoo. It's really too small for the big animals, plus it's way out by Ocean Beach, on the foggy, cool side of the City -- not at all where you want to keep tigers. I used to think they should get together with Oakland's (warmer, sunnier) Knowland Park Zoo... (sigh)

[pitohui]

20. it was ruled the tiger was not at fault in that incident

the housing at the sf zoo was not adequate to protect the trainer, "the tiger was doing what tigers do," the zoo made changes rather than punishing the tiger for the mistake of the zoo -- would you have it instead that they automatically killed the animal no matter who was at fault as in the bad old days?

another example would be montecore, the tiger that attacked roy horn, in a show on stage at las vegas, is still alive and being cared for...by roy horn, at least at last report (must be getting up there in years by now) -- you may criticize his attitude, but he loves these animals, he always knews the risks, and he maintains the mistake was not the tiger, so he is not going to punish the tiger

i'm not sure he is wrong

as for the sf zoo, there's something real fishy about this and all the very conflicting news reports -- the police said that they are investigating this as a crime scene

[no name no slogan]

16. Or maybe they just shouldn't make people so delicious

[pitohui]

17. in a 100 years it won't matter, there won't be any siberian tigers

they have no future in the wild, for a variety of reasons, their parts are considered valuable, locals don't want tigers running wild in their streets either, and since human population won't curb its numbers, then the tiger will go

the siberian tiger will be maintained in captivity or it won't exist at all

[stuntcat]

23. that's true but

I have no "but" for this, just want to reply, you're exactly right. There's no room left for a lot of beautiful animals. No one will admit it's a mass-extinction and that naked monkeys caused it until it's too late and we're about to drive ourselves to extinction.
Rich first-worlders can keep taking their 3-year-olds to the zoo to marvel at caged elephants, oh what happy times! :puke: