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Experts: Taunts Not Only Factor In SF Tiger Attack

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS 5 / AP) ― San Francisco police believe that three zoo visitors who were mauled by a tiger yelled and waved at the cat from atop a railing before it lunged at them, but experts said that's only a notch up from the type of taunting animals regularly endure at the nation's zoos.

One study concluded that as many as one in four zoo visitors razz the animals in some way, and large predators like tigers are a prime target.

Paul Dhaliwal, one of the two surviving victims, told the father of the teenager killed in the Christmas Day attack that while the three climbed the 3-foot-tall railing and tried to get the tiger's attention, they never threw or dangled anything into the pen, according to a search warrant affidavit filed in court.

"When they got down they heard a noise in the bushes, and the tiger was jumping out of the bushes," according to the father's account. Police found a partial shoe print that matched Dhaliwal's on the 3-foot-tall metal railing, the court documents said.

Dhaliwal, 19, was severely injured when the 250-pound Siberian tiger named Tatiana clawed its way up the wall of its enclosure, leapt out and mauled him. His brother, Kulbir, 24, was also injured, and their friend, 17-year-old Carlos Sousa Jr., was killed.

The tiger "may have been taunted/agitated by its eventual victims," Inspector Valerie Matthews wrote in the affidavit. Police believe "this factor contributed to the tiger escaping from its enclosure and attacking its victims," she wrote.

All three victims had marijuana in their systems, and Paul Dhaliwal's blood alcohol level was 0.16, twice the legal limit for driving, according to the affidavit.

Kulbir Dhaliwal told police the three had smoked pot and each had "a couple shots of vodka" before leaving San Jose for the zoo, the affidavit said.

Police found a small amount of marijuana in Kulbir Dhaliwal's 2002 BMW, which the victims took to the zoo, as well as a partially filled bottle of vodka, according to court documents.

"Clearly there's the lesson to be learned here," said zoo spokesman Sam Singer. "The lesson is that it's not a good idea to drink, it's not a good idea to be high on dope, and it's not a good idea to taunt a man-eating tiger."

Authorities were weighing whether to seek criminal charges against the Dhaliwals, but their lawyer, Mark Geragos, said they have presented no evidence of a crime. Geragos, who has repeatedly said the brothers didn't taunt the tiger, also noted that the affidavit does not specify any possible counts.

"Basically, they're arguing that if you go to the zoo and wave at the animals, you get the death penalty," he said. "And that's just nonsense."

Geragos alleged the search warrant was aimed at smearing the Dhaliwal brothers. "It's nothing but a smoke screen to take away attention from what the real problem is," he said. "The only crime committed here was committed by the zoo."

David Kestenbaum, a criminal defense attorney in Los Angeles who has followed the case, said investigators could be pursuing misdemeanor charges related to possessing marijuana, trespassing or giving alcohol to a minor.

But he does not believe the evidence police have revealed so far would support felony charges unless there is evidence the three young men conspired to get the animal out of its cage.

"I don't see a felony based on the facts that are public at this point," Kestenbaum said. "I think the combination of the marijuana, alcohol and youth made this a poor judgement call, but it's not something they foresaw the consequences of."

As the city looks to minimize its liability in the inevitable lawsuits, animal behaviorists generally agreed Friday that the visitors' alleged actions would not exonerate the zoo or its accrediting agency, the Association of Zoos and Aquariums.

Zoo officials have acknowledged the wall surrounding the tiger's open air enclosure was four feet lower than recommended by the AZA. The same tiger, a female named Tatiana, ripped the flesh off a zookeeper's arm in December 2006. After that attack, the zoo revamped the bars enclosing the indoor cages where she and other big cats were kept.

"Taunting or not, I just think it's incumbent on the AZA and the zoos to have taunt-proof cages," said wildlife biologist Marc Bekoff, a professor emeritus of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Colorado, Boulder. "If you are going to have an animal like a Siberian tiger or other predators, you have to protect the public."

Bekoff said taunting is common at zoos. He said students in his animal behavior courses during the 1990s found that 20 to 25 percent of zoo visitors taunted the animals especially predators such as lions and tigers by mimicking, yelling, throwing things at them or otherwise aggravating them.

"This is not an isolated incident and the zoo is trying to wrangle itself out," he said. "The kids were not responsible for Tatiana being shipped around like a couch. The kids were not responsible for the enclosure being inadequate. The kids are responsible for the taunting."

"The victims definitely provoked the attack," Bekoff said. "Maybe the tiger felt more motivation to get out, but I would have to say, I could not see holding the two guys who lived culpable for the death of their friend."

Stephen Zawistowski, science adviser for the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, also said taunting probably is not the sole reason for the attack.

"When something like this happens, what you find is it's almost never that there was one single thing that went wrong," said Zawistowski. "It's a cascade of things.

"The wall wasn't a height that was appropriate; there was an animal with a past history; there was nobody there to keep track of it; there were people there harassing it. When you click down that list and they all align, you end up with a tragedy," he said.

Zoos frequently have docents or keepers on hand to prevent animals from being harassed, but the San Francisco Zoo has refused to disclose how many employees were working when the attack occurred as the zoo was closing on Christmas Day.

The search warrant affidavit cites multiple reports to police of people taunting animals at the zoo that day. They included a report of a man and a woman throwing rocks at the lions about an hour before Tatiana escaped. Witnesses also told police they saw penguins and monkeys being harassed by groups of four or five male visitors.

Of the four witness accounts received by police, only one described three men at the tiger exhibit.

After the attack, the zoo posted new signs asking visitors to be respectful of the animals.

"The signs are an effort to show zoo patrons that they should treat animals with respect," Singer said.

(© 2008 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)