Tiger grotto wall shorter than thought, may have contributed to escape and fatal attack

[RamboLiberal]

Source: San Francisco Chronicle

The wall of a moat that surrounds the enclosure from which a 350-pound tiger escaped on Christmas Day was actually far shorter than San Francisco Zoo officials thought and what national standards recommend, authorities said today.

Zoo officials have gone back and forth on the grotto's measurements since Tuesday's attack, which killed 17-year-old Carlos Sousa Jr. and seriously injured his friends. Relatives and public records identify the friends as brothers Paul Dhaliwal, 19, and Kulbir Dhaliwal, 23.

Earlier this week, zoo officials said the moat's wall was at least 20 feet tall. Today they said it was little over 12 feet. Officials have given at least five different measurements for the enclosure, which is surrounded by a moat, two walls on either side of the moat, a small patch of grass and then another waist-high fence. Experts say that the depth of the moat and height of the walls could have a large impact on the animal's ability to escape the enclosure.

"Today we went out and measured the moat ourselves," said zoo Director Manuel Mollinedo. The tiger "had to have jumped (out but) how she jumped that high is beyond me."

In measuring the area, Mollinedo said, his staff found that contrary to information they had on file in their office, the moat wall was 12 1/2 feet high - about four feet lower than is recommended as a national standard by cat experts.



Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/12/27/MNFFU5G80.DTL&tsp=1

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Even if the young men taunted this tiger - looks like SF Zoo is going to end up paying out a lot of money as I think they should. This is a really stupid mistake on the zoo's part IMHO.

Read the story, lot of interesting details including some backtracking on evidence reported earlier today, also the tiger had concrete in her back paws which may indicate she was using her back paws to push in scaling the wall.

[elocs]

1. 12 1/2 feet, 20 feet, what's a few feet here and there--picky, picky, picky.

Actually measuring how tall the wall is, what a novel concept. God save us from incompetence. I once had a dog who could climb a chain link fence by using her hind legs to go over it.

[RamboLiberal]

5. Glad my dog didn't learn that trick

But I did put a 6 foot fence in to keep her from vaulting it. I can imagine a 12 1/2 foot wall be nothing for a tiger to scale or vault.

BTW my shepherd husky is a digger, but she never figured out to try digging under the fence till just recently (after 10 years!) when a stray cat was hanging around close to the yard.

I ended up taking the cat to the humane society. It didn't want to move and I was wondering if it was injured. Sweetest cat. I think it was just lost and didn't know where to go. I'm hoping it gets adopted.

Good thing my dog won the work football pool twice cause I spent near $50 getting big wooden tie like planks to put at bottom of fence to keep miss dirty nose from doing any more digging under the fence.

[Gman]

13. If the wood doesn't work

Dig a small trench at the bottom of the fence, maybe no more than 6" deep, pour in some Quikcrete or other quick setting concrete. Tamp it down with your foot to make it compact. It's much cheaper and more permanent.

[colorado_ufo]

16. Yes, 12.5 feet only means the zoo has been lucky.

A Siberian tiger, at 300 lb. yet, dwarfs a Bengal tiger; add a shot of adrenaline, and the tiger could probably damn near fly. The human high jump record is about 8 feet, for reference. Even the AZA minimum standard of 16 feet is very likely too low for Siberian tigers.

By the way, if you ever have a chance to visit a zoo that has Siberians on display, you should see them. They are truly awe-inspiring animals!

[Cerridwen]

35. Off topic, but was your fence climber a terrier?

I have one that got over a 6' brick wall to go after a neighbors rabbit. The rabbit is fine, btw. :D

Chain link to my little guy is like a ladder. I'm tempted to keep him fat to keep him "grounded." LOL

[goodgd_yall]

2. That's a big difference

How could they have thought it was 20 feet?

That solves the "mystery" of how the tiger could have escaped. It really did seem at first that we had a very athletically skilled tiger.

[ORDagnabbit]

3. seriously how the hell can you not measure a wall???

[LisaL]

4. 12 and 1/2 feet is a lot shorter than recommended.

And nobody noticed?
Weren't they supposed to have spend a lot of money to make the exhibit safer?
Oops.

[noel adamson]

6. "Spent a lot of money making things safer" rather than used their heads.

Weren't they supposed to have spend a lot of money to make the exhibit safer?

Equating cost to results is "pre 911 thinking" as in "look what our many, many billions of tax dollars have bought in Iraq"...

[shanti]

19. bet they're feverishly

measuring ALL the enclosure walls today! this is going to cost the city of SF plenty!

[uppityperson]

7. 12.5 feet, not 20 ft? That's a big difference.

Seems a tiger could go 12/5 ft without too much trouble.

[AnnieBW]

8. I can haz human?

When asked how the humans tasted, the tiger responded, "GRRRREEEAT!"

[RamboLiberal]

9. I don't find that humerous under the circumstances

Even if at fault a family lost their son. Two others were seriously injured. A magnificent animal is dead as well.

[EFerrari]

10. In this article, the zoo managers claim to have been conservative

in building the enclosure.

These muthers will never get a dime from me again.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=3114985&mesg_id=3115266

[KittyWampus]

39. The tiger enclosure was inspected by the AZA. Height was never mentioned as a problem or violation

[AlGore-08.com]

11. This zoo got in trouble last year when the same tiger mauled a zoo employee feeding it

And they upgraded the tiger exhibit in response. They obviously didn't say to themselves "are there any other potential safety problems with the tiger exhibit? We should fix them now or we'll really have to pay out if somebody else gets hurt."

It's sorta looking like the folks in charge of the zoo ain't up to the job, doesn't it?

[LisaL]

12. Add to that, it was the very same tiger.

I can't believe the zoo hasn't measured how tall the wall was before this.
How did the zoo even get accredited? Doesn't accrediting organization care how tall the wall is?

[AlGore-08.com]

15. That's a good question. If everybody is going from the zoo's "files"

rather than ever inspecting, a shady zoo administrator could just submit bogus paperwork and get a good rating.

It's pretty obvious nobody whose jobs took them inside the exhibits was an expert on how to house big cats, because there's no way they'd go into the exhibit and not notice the wall was WAY too short...

[northzax]

14. what really suprises me

Is that there is no video of the escape.

[AlGore-08.com]

17. The zoo doesn't have cameras monitoring (at least) that exhibit

They're going to add them now, according to the news reports.

[LittleClarkie]

18. It was still stupid of the victim to dangle his leg in the tiger's domain

Not bright at all.

[goodgd_yall]

20. He was too trusting

that the Zoo tiger experts knew what they were doing.

[karlrschneider]

22. No shit. They should anticipate every conceivable act of stupidity that could ever happen.

To infinity.

[Hoof Hearted]

23. Better yet, they should just show movies of animals in zoos. That way everyone can feel safe

and the zoo will have no liability - but wait!

What if they die on the highway - ON THE WAY TO THE ZOO?

|dramatic music| *dom* *dom* *daahhhm* |/dramatic music|

[LisaL]

46. How about they just make walls as tall as the standard indicates

they should be?

[LisaL]

24. What evidence do you have that the victim dangled his leg

in the tiger's domain?
That claim seem to have been based on the claim that the shoe was found inside the enclosure.
Now they are saying the shoe was not found inside the enclosure.
So, again, where is the evidence the victim dangled his leg?
"But at an afternoon news conference, Police Chief Heather Fong said police had no information that anyone had put a leg over the railing, and she said no shoe was found in the animal's enclosure. She did not address whether the victims had teased the tiger."


http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gEclFYG2_eqGTpkeD4OknwUlgqEgD8TQ3J3G0

[atre]

37. There's also NO evidence of that whatsoever...

What you're citing is previous speculation of how a Siberian Tiger could have possibly jumped a 20 foot wall. We now know that it wasn't a 20 foot wall.

There's also NO evidence whatsoever that the kids who were attacked did anything to provoke the tiger. That's just speculation based on the fact that the tiger targetted these particular kids...

But let's not minutae like that get in the way of a good-ole victim-bashing parade.

[LittleClarkie]

40. Let's not get overly dramatic. I'm not trying to have a victim bashing parade

I wasn't aware that the previous report had been discredited. Mea culpa.

[karlrschneider]

21. Bullshit. There is no possible way a wall's height can be "misjudged" by that much.

Somebody is lying here.

[LisaL]

25. It seems nobody actually measured it, since it was build in 1940,

up until now.
Hard to believe.

[BuelahWitch]

26. Yeah, and no tiger ever escaped for 67 years till now

[LisaL]

27. They might have not had a tiger escaping, but that very

same tiger mauled a keeper almost exactly a year ago.
Maybe this particular tiger was more aggressive than the most.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

28. But how long have they had Siberian tigers?

They are bigger and stronger than Bengals, and since they are also pretty rare, most zoos didn't have them until relatively recently when they started breeding programs. I wonder if Siberians can jump higher than the smaller Bengals, and if so, whether they thought of that?

[MiniMe]

30. That just means that the zoo has been lucky

They are also lucky that this occured at the end of the day on a holiday so the zoo was relatively unpopulated.

[LisaL]

32. I don't know if you can call a boy killed and the other two

mauled as being lucky. I guess it could have been worse, if there were moms with young kids around, but I still wouldn't call the zoo "lucky."

[MiniMe]

33. They are lucky that this has never happened before

I think I read that the enclosure was built in 1940. I never said that the boys were lucky, and I never implied that. If fact, I don't care if the boys were being typical teenagers and doing dumb things, the tiger should not have been able to escape. However, since it did indeed escape, I would assume that it has been possible for it to happen for 67 years. So the zoo is lucky it didn't happen before this. And they are lucky that the zoo wasn't more crowded because it would have been likely that even more people would get hurt.

[MiniMe]

29. It depends on what they were measuring

Is it possible that they were measuring 20 feet from the bottom of the moat? If the moat was 8 feet deep that would make sense that it is where the confusion is coming from. So it may be 20 feet from the bottom of the moat, but only 12 feet above the enclosure.

[LisaL]

31. Why don't you try to actually read the OP article?

[MiniMe]

34. I did

And nowhere does it say if they were measuring from the bottom of the moat or from the level of the enclosure.

[LisaL]

42. Right. It would make total sense for the zoo director to

cover up the fact that the moat was 8 feet deep, while admitting that the wall was shorter than recommended.
:sarcasm:

[MiniMe]

44. I just posted an idea

What is your problem? Are you always this nasty?

[Blue-Jay]

38. Based upon recent events, I'd say that a mistake was bloody likely.

Not that anyone misjudged the actual height of a wall, mind you. Someone, at some time, simply misjudged the singular resolve of a pissed-off tiger.

Lessons to be learned:

1) If you think a dangerous animal can jump 15 feet, build a wall twice that height.
2) Don't taunt a motherfuckin' tiger. Ever!

[progressivebydesign]

36. recommended, not required. They have had years of inspections and no problem with it.

They have found a footprint on the railing, and a shoe in the moat area. I'm sorry this young man was killed.. but how utterly stupid cruel and immature can you be to taunt a tiger in an open enclosure? To the point of putting your leg over into the tiger's enclosure? Don't parents teach any type of decency and common sense anymore? Or do they just wait for the big payout when the kid does something completely stupid?

[LisaL]

41. They didn't find the shoe in the moat area.

The new articles say the shoe was not found in the enclosure.

[Hell Hath No Fury]

43. I have been going to that zoo for over 40+ years...

sometimes five or six times a year, and my Mom for another 20+.

The large cats have always been in those same enclosures -- the same "moat", the same wall, same security arrangements. And, in all those years, not one cat has escaped from their enclosure -- not one -- why the heck now??? What was different about these particular circumstances? I have watched cat after cat stroll down into the "moat" area, to walk back and forth along the base of the wall -- with every opportunity in the world to make a jump for it. And it never happened until now.

That cat didn't act as it did for no good reason. It's actions were prompted by something. And I wanna know who and what that was.

[Rex]

45. Total conjecture on my part.

But I read that particular tiger ripped a handlers arm off a year ago. Maybe someone dangled an arm to close into the enclosure. I've never been there, but you would know if that is possible or not. Something triggered that cat to behave like that. They don't just one day say, 'hey, I think I'm gonna eat a lot of people today after I jump over that wall'.