The shocking Christmas Day incident at the San Francisco Zoo in which a Siberian Tiger escaped its enclosure and attacked and killed one zoo visitor and severely wounded two others has had a powerful effect on me emotionally. I have suffered over the years from chronic nightmares involving attacks by various big cats and have felt drawn to all stories involving incidents of this nature at zoos and in the wild.
I feel further attachment to this story because I have come to know this zoo pretty well and feel especially connected with the big cats there.
A little over a year ago, my company had an outing at the zoo and we spent several hours there. I found myself oddly compelled to witness the public feeding of the big cats that occurs daily at 2pm. At the time, you could get to within about twenty feet of the animals while they ripped recently killed rabits to shreds. I found myself transfixed my the view of a large african lion crunching into the rabbit's bones and marvelling at the power of its jaws. I had no idea that just a couple of months later a zookeeper's arm had become part of this feeding frenzy as she had reached too closely to Tatiana, the Siberian Tiger that was get lose a year later and take a man's life.
Last October I took part in a family fun event at the zoo, a "scary sleepover" that's part of a series of educational events put on by the zoo. My wife and son and a friend with his son camped out in a meadow only a few hundred yards away from the big cat enclosures. The whole event was a little disappointing in that I'd expected the zoo to be very lively at night and it was actually quite quiet. The animals' schedules are arranged to be of maximal entertainment during visiting hours so this makes sense. The one thing that was fascinating though, was when the big cats awaoke at about 3am and greeted each other with primal roars for the rest of the night until daybreak. I went to get another look at them in the morning and they seemed calm and content. One keeper told me of how these big cats really are content with relatively small enclosures because their needs are met with regular feedings. In the wild they need large tracts of land to support their dietary requirements, but here they are treated and fed well and become relaxed and happy - or so he said.
Overall, I was impressed by the professionalism and air of competence of these zoo personnel, even if my feelings about the containment of these magnificent animals is rather ambivalent. I get you can imagine how unsettling this news report was in light of this recent experience.
I written quite a bit at my blog, New Worlds, about my big cat dreams and other related thoughts and there is a thread on this event there now that might be interesting to some. I just thought I'd share my personal attachment to this story.