Wednesday, December 26, 2007

Tatiana

"There is not, in my opinion, anything more mysterious in nature than this instinct in animals, which thus rise above reason, and yet fall infinitely short of it."

-Joseph Addison

So sad. Yesterday, a Siberian tiger named Tatiana, somehow got out of the big cat enclosure at the San Francisco Zoo, and mauled a young man to death. Two companions of the man were seriously injured, but are expected to recover. The tiger unfortunately had to be killed. Sigh. She was a beautiful tiger. I got a chance to see her a year ago when I last visited the zoo. The tigers are incredible animals, and I enjoy seeing them, but I always have to wonder if putting them in cages at the zoo is really a good idea. So many questions will have to be answered over the next few days and weeks. I imagine there will be a combination of human error and perhaps criminal liability in the end. I don't want to think that someone might have let her out of her cage... I don't know... but something extraordinary occurred that's certain. The Bay Area has taken a couple of big hits recently, with the oil spill from the tanker ship in the bay last November, and now this. Sad times right now. I think I am going to try real hard to forget 2007 ever happened. Sigh.

Tiger Attack At San Francisco Zoo

-OndineMonet
"Tatiana"
San Francisco Zoo
August 22, 2006
Afternoon

2 comments:

Liz said...

What a magnificent creature ~ I'm always in awe of them when I go to the Bronx Zoo! It's too bad this ever had to happen. :::big sigh:::

Hugz,
~~Aunt Nub~~

Anonymous said...

Carly,
I'm very glad that you wrote about this tiger because it bothered me much that they killed her
sigh
they could have tasered her somerhow
hugs,natalie