When Tigers Attack!!...and...later...When Poodles Meet Wind-Up Toys!!!

So today the San Francisco Zoo reopened after a tiger escaped and mauled a couple people on Christmas Day.
Yeah.
I said mauled.
The tiger escaped out of her cage by jumping the wall and proceeded to maul three people.
One person was killed via the mauling and two others were...well, mauled.
The mauling was not stopped until police shot the tiger to death.
Yeah.
Isn't that like the worst thing you've heard in a while?
There's a lot I'd like to say about this so, rather than try and form it into a tight, coherant, well structed post like a good writer, I'm just gonna throw out some bullet points. Deal with it.


- I'm not sure if I can think of anything more frightening than being mauled by a tiger (except being mauled by a tiger while "Christmas Shoes" plays in the background but I would hope such punishment would only be reserved for the 7th ring of hell).
I can't quite imagine being ripped into by a tiger.
Especially at a zoo. I mean, in the wild animals are seen as wild and I think people kinda realize when on a Siberian Safari, "Gee...I probably should poke this tiger with a stick because he could turn around and rip my face off." But in a zoo there's this sort of domesticated feel. We gawk at the animals and think, "They're so cuuuute!!!"
And yes.
Yes.
They are cute.
But zoo tigers can still rip your face off and zoo monkeys still fling around their own poo.
Neither of which are very becoming or "cuuuute."
In fact, both are sort of repulsive.
I'm also pretty damn sure the last thing a tiger wants to here is that it's, "cuuuute." If I were a tiger and people stood at my cage all day gawking at me and telling me how cute I was and pounding on the rails around my cage to get my attention...I'm pretty damn sure I would want to rip someone's face off too.
Just like tigers in the wild, zoo tigers do not like being poked with a stick (literal or metaphorical) and just because a tiger is in a zoo and caged...you shouldn't necessarily count on that cage holding said tiger because apparently sometimes they can just jump out. Go figure.
Conclusion: When going to the zoo, leave your "tiger poking sticks" at home.


-So it's under "investigation" as to whether or not the people who were mauled were taunting the tiger or not.
Ok.
Um...not that I don't have sympathy for the tiger here, but should it really matter whether or not these people were taunting the tiger?? I mean...I certainly don't think any animal deserves any sort of disrespect but I don't think these dudes expected the tiger to jump out of her cage and maul them.
And allegedly, the walls were significantly below the regulation height for tiger cages.
So what you're basically saying is that you put a tiger in a cage that it could possibly jump out of and then said tiger proceeded to jump out of the cage and deliver a horrifying death to one person and horrifying injuries to two others and now you're going to ask these kids who have their intestines hanging out, "Well, did you tease her?!?"
You guys suck.
Like I said, I certainly understand the tiger's point of view here. I think all animals deserve the utmost respect.
I however, would be lying if I said I never stood behind the gate at my grandfather's condo in Florida while my brother and I called out "Fresh Meat! Fresh Meat! Fresh Meat!" to the alligators in a lagoon not twenty feet away.
I'm just saying that maybe these dudes thought they were being funny (if they did taunt the tiger), just like my brother and I did. They certainly did not expect or deserve to be mauled by the same tiger later that day. Just like my brother and I did not expect an alligator to walk out of the lagoon and take us up on our "Fresh Meat" offer. (Now, not being a complete dumbass...I always made sure the pool was free of alligators before jumping in.)
I'm also really sick of hearing the word "investigation." I've never really seen any "investigation" yield anything useful. They're stupid and if you ask me a sham to make people feel better because often times the people who should be "investigated" seem to slip by the "investigating" while the people who shouldn't be "investigated" are and made to look bad. *Ahem Ahem* Bush Administration.
But that's beside the point.


-Which leads me to...responsibility. Yeah, this was a horrible horrible accident. I'm sure it would have been prevented if it could have. But when it comes down to it:
a) The tiger was in a cage it could get out of. Ok, yeah...maybe you've never seen a tiger jump that high Mr. Zookeeper, but there's a reason there are regualtions and your walls were under regulations. Tigers know how to jump high.
b) Tigers don't belong in zoos. Animals don't belong in zoos.
I am not a hippie, ok?
I understand zoos are important for us to learn about animals, I understand they're important for reasearch and I undertand that in many cases zoos preserve animals that would otherwise die in the wild because we're invading their homes to build condos.
I'm just saying it sucks.
Maybe one day we'll all figure out how to live in perfect harmony, until that day...we'll invade and cut down the jungle and tigers will break out of their cages and maul people.
It sounds stupid but it's a little like world politics: we're not going to understand each other until we truly want to and that won't happen until it's an absolute necessity.
For world politics that might mean not until we all have our nukes pointed at each other with our fingers on the triggers.
For the humans and animals that might mean not until we face mass extinctions (possibly our own) or the collective rising up of zoo animals from sloths to rhinos who will take over and maul the human race for fucking them over.
And yes, I do believe a sloth could maul a human being. That mauling would suck a lot because it would happen really slowly. Haha. Get it?


-The fact that the tiger was shot to death really bothers me. I'm glad they stopped it before it inflicted heavier damage, don't get me wrong.
But it's sorta provokes Frankenstein-esque feelings in me.
Here is a monster that's not really a monster that we've created by taking it out of it's natural environment and putting it in a cage that's too small for it so kids who think they're funny can mock it.
We suck.
My heart hurts when I think of that beautiful animal being so violently shot to death.
And least I be accused of of being unsympathetic towards my own species I will also say that my heart not only hurts but also screams in terror when I think about what those boys went through.
It's just a really crappy situation. Nobody deserved what they got.



Ok. Sorry about the heavy post about tiger mauling people. So I will now post a short video about what happens when a poodle meets a wind-up toy *cue dramatic music*
Here's a hint about what happens when a poodle meets a wind-up toy: Nothing gets mauled.



Yeah. Pretty sure that's one animal we can safely count on never mauling a member of the human race. I mean...she can't even take on a wind-up toy thats a 1/12 of her size.



P.S. I've just figured out I can make little "tag" things for my blog posts. So my next big project will be going back and adding appropriate "tags" to posts. I guess it will help if you want to find something easily. At least I think that's how it works. Eh. Maybe it will be a giant waste of time. Whatevs.

P.P.S. I'm adding a permanent link on my side bar, it's to David's photo-a-day blog. You should really go check it out. I'd put the link in here, but for whatever reason when I blog on my mac it doesn't let me hyperlink to other websites. I could give you the web address but you'd just have to copy and paste it into your browser, so you may as well just take the extra milisecond to roll your mouse to the sidebar and click on the link there.

P.P.P.S. Yes, that is my very own dog "attacking" the wind-up toy. I know. I know. We tried to unadopt her but they wouldn't let us. We also tried leaving her outside for few days, but that didn't work either. And because we're not horrible people we let her live on the back porch and occassionally let her come inside when it's really cold and to tease her with windup toys.
(That was all a lie) (Except for the part about the dog being my very own dog. That part was real. I mean..she's not my very own...but I know her and she lives at my house.)