Pets & Animals

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) ― A tiger lurked in the tall grass at a park in India as gamekeepers tried to shoot it with a dart gun and missed. The animal suddenly sprang from the grass, sailed through the air and took a swipe at a man sitting on an elephant's back.

The man lost three fingers.

"I could never imagine that a tiger could so effortlessly leap from the ground on to an adult elephant's head, which is at least 12 feet above the ground," Vivek Menon, executive director of Wildlife Trust of India, said of the 2004 attack, a video of which has been circulating on YouTube.

That attack—along with other examples of explosive encounters with tigers—are stoking a debate that began after a 350-pound Siberian tiger climbed over the 12 ½-foot wall around its pen at the San Francisco Zoo on Christmas Day and mauled three visitors, killing one.
Among the questions experts are now asking: How high can tigers jump? And have zoos and sanctuaries dangerously underestimated tigers?
That is to say: Are the walls high enough?

"We are evaluating that right now," said Vernon Weir, director of the American Sanctuary Association, which has about 35 members, only a few of which have big cats. The ASA accredits sanctuaries and in the past recommended 12-foot fences.

Similarly, Association of Zoos & Aquariums, which accredits the nation's zoos, may adjust its 16.4-foot wall-height recommendation for tigers once it learns fully what happened in San Francisco, spokesman Steve Feldmanquelle said.

The Christmas Day attack was not the first report of a tiger getting out of its enclosure at the San Francisco Zoo.

A retired entymologist in Kuranda, Australia, said he accompanied the zoo director when he decided to test the big cat enclosure one evening in 1959. David Rentz, who was 17 at the time, told the San Francisco Chronicle that the director dangled a piece of meat on a pole on the side of the exhibit's 33-foot-wide dry moat.

"Once the tiger saw it, he literally flew across the moat from his position on the other side, grabbed the meat, and sprung back to the grotto all in one graceful movement," Rentz wrote in a Web posting.

Several years later, another tiger got past the same moat and was found in bushes next to a low railing that separates the animals from the public, retired zookeeper John Alcaraz told The Associated Press. Alcaraz was with fellow zookeeper Jack Castor when they came upon the tiger.

"Jack yelled at him, 'Get outta here!' He was all very quiet and he responded to the yelling," said Alcaraz, who first told his story to the San Francisco Bay Guardian. "We put water in the moat, 2 feet of water, and we never had problems again."

Zoo spokesman Sam Singer said officials were not aware of either incident at the enclosure, which was built in 1940.

The AZA said it has 216 accredited members with 258 tigers among them. Only five of them were born in the wild, and tigers in captivity generally cannot jump as high as those that are in top condition from hunting in the wild.

Louis Dorfman, an animal behaviorist and chairman of the International Exotic Animal Sanctuary in Texas, oversees 24 tigers at his sanctuary, including an 11-year-old Bengal-Siberian tiger that weighs about 550 pounds and extends about 11 feet paw-to-paw when it stretches like a housecat.

Dorfman said his tigers have never tried to scale their fences, but warned: "With provocation, they're capable of unbelievable aggression and power. These cats are a combination of strong instincts, strong emotion and no inhibition."

Zoo visitors running back and forth can resemble prey to a tiger. Throwing objects at a tiger or dangling something can also trigger its predatory instincts.

"First and foremost, people need to be educated. We need to respect them accordingly," said Jonathan Kraft, who runs Keepers of the Wild in Arizona, which has more than 20 tigers. In the San Francisco escape, "I would bet my reputation that the animal was taunted." 

Mark Geragos, the lawyer for the two men who were injured in the attack in San Francisco maintains his clients did nothing to provoke the animal.

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