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