# 90 Tigers Found Dead At Calif. Home - Can I please have 5 minutes and a baseball bat **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [April 24, 2003, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/90-tigers-found-dead-at-calif-home-can-i-please-have-5-minutes-and-a-baseball-bat/170932 "2003-04-24T19:40:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Gorgon\_Heap](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/f475e1/32.png) [@Gorgon\_Heap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorgon_Heap)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2003, 12:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/90-tigers-found-dead-at-calif-home-can-i-please-have-5-minutes-and-a-baseball-bat/170932/21 "2003-04-25T12:26:51Z")
That’s what I’m wondering **Coldfire**. It’s obvious they can’t care for the things. You’d think there would be people who keep track of these type of animals - Hell, the Humane Society sends reps to your house when you adopt one of their animals, and dogs and cats certainly on endangered! This is seriously sick, and criminally offensive. **Cervaise** , did you read the “Wishing death on other people” thread? Maybe you should do so. I’d count the OP’s comments in the “angry hyperbole” area or ranting. If you actually let him put this guy in prison, I doubt the OP would want to watch him get raped, but I think he believes - and I agree - that this sack of shit deserves every inch of the fullest extended punishment available in the law for what he’s done. ---
**Author:** ![Margo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d26b3c/32.png) [@Margo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Margo)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2003, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/90-tigers-found-dead-at-calif-home-can-i-please-have-5-minutes-and-a-baseball-bat/170932/22 "2003-04-25T12:33:41Z")
Just make the guy wear a meat hat [http://www.hatsofmeat.com/HatsofMeat/index.html](http://www.hatsofmeat.com/HatsofMeat/index.html) and toss him in the cage with some of the survivors… Margo (not really wishing death, just maybe partial dismemberment…) ---
**Author:** ![roadrunner70](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e19b73/32.png) [@roadrunner70](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/roadrunner70)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2003, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/90-tigers-found-dead-at-calif-home-can-i-please-have-5-minutes-and-a-baseball-bat/170932/23 "2003-04-25T12:42:08Z")
I think a meat condom would be better… [sub]sorry, no link[/sub] ---
**Author:** ![Margo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d26b3c/32.png) [@Margo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Margo)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2003, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/90-tigers-found-dead-at-calif-home-can-i-please-have-5-minutes-and-a-baseball-bat/170932/24 "2003-04-25T12:53:39Z")
Hmmm…maybe a sausage casing… Margo ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2003, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/90-tigers-found-dead-at-calif-home-can-i-please-have-5-minutes-and-a-baseball-bat/170932/25 "2003-04-25T13:02:42Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Juniper200 \* > \*\*How can someone let those animals die like that? There’s no time in a tiger’s life when it’s not beautiful and amazing; I can’t imagine that someone could neglect such beauty. \*\* And some might ask how anyone can let those animals _live_ like that as well. That is, how can people keep such creatures in captivity at all? This is a large, wild animal native to a different continent that has been conditioned by millenia of evolution to roam free and hunt, not to become the fashion accessory and status symbol for some private owner, the cage-pacing main attraction in a zoo, or the sidekick in a Siegreid and Roy show. ---
**Author:** ![Bippy\_the\_Beardless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ac8455/32.png) [@Bippy\_the\_Beardless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bippy_the_Beardless)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2003, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/90-tigers-found-dead-at-calif-home-can-i-please-have-5-minutes-and-a-baseball-bat/170932/26 "2003-04-25T15:27:25Z")
I abhor the death penalty, but I find it hard not to wish the perpetrators find justice in the claws of the surviving tigers. Cheers, Bippy ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2003, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/90-tigers-found-dead-at-calif-home-can-i-please-have-5-minutes-and-a-baseball-bat/170932/27 "2003-04-25T16:09:10Z")
Homeless tigers, eh? The wife and I have gone through about 100 cats at our place. They do real well when they are little. The wife feeds them, makes sure they alway have fresh water and shelter. She really takes good care of all her animals. The cats, however, like to roam. As soon as they get the balls and attitude to go over the fence, to no-man’s land, they shortly come up missing. I got an idea! Give me a couple of these little guys! I can’t wait to see the looks on the faces of the coyotes when they get a look at our “new cats”! 😃 I have a feeling the rest of the livestock wouldn’t like the arraingement, however. * * * um humm… ---
**Author:** ![PhDMetalhead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e274bd/32.png) [@PhDMetalhead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhDMetalhead)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2003, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/90-tigers-found-dead-at-calif-home-can-i-please-have-5-minutes-and-a-baseball-bat/170932/28 "2003-04-25T16:50:00Z")
90 tigers! Are these ex-circus tigers or something? To answer your question, Coldfire, note that the original article euphemistically refers to the tigers in question as “retired animal performers” - kinda conjures up images of young tigers, their belongings tied to sticks slung over their shoulders, running away from home to join Ringling Brothers, then finding a nice “sanctuary” to lounge around in when they’ve decided to call it a career. I think we all know this is BS - more accurately, they are circus castoffs, tossed aside when they either get to old to “perform”, or too unmanageable after years of abuse and confinement. Mhendo hits the nail on the head: These are majestic wild animals, who were not put on this earth to be subjugated for warped “entertainment” purposes. Anyone who has ever patronized a circus which included “performing” tigers is partially responsible for this atrocity, and for (I’m betting) hundreds more we’ll never hear about. It’s that simple - cut off the flow of “surplus” animals generated by circuses and the like, and operations like this will be much less likely to ever exist in the first place. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2003, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/90-tigers-found-dead-at-calif-home-can-i-please-have-5-minutes-and-a-baseball-bat/170932/29 "2003-04-25T16:55:14Z")
Here’s the thing. Tigers can reproduce quickly. They can have a couple of cubs every year, and those cubs can have cubs, etc etc. Pretty soon you’re dealing with a tribble situation here. The limiting factor with tigers and big cats isn’t that there aren’t enough of them, its that there’s no ROOM for all of them. Their natural habitat is being destroyed, and there are only so many zoos and responsible wildlife rescue places. There are captive big cats all over America, there is no shortage of them. In fact, it is pretty much impossible to get rid of them, since every place that is set up to handle big cats already has more big cats than they can handle. Idiots get a tiger cub for a pet, cub grows into a 500 pound killing machine, and they decide to get rid of it. Except they can’t get rid of it, since every rescue slot is already full. So the tiger is euthanized, or ends up with a psycho like this guy. There are mentally ill people who do the same thing with dogs, cats or horses…collect hundreds of them, they all live in their own waste and starve to death, because the person “loves animals” so much. ---
**Author:** ![Pedro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/919ad9/32.png) [@Pedro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pedro)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2003, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/90-tigers-found-dead-at-calif-home-can-i-please-have-5-minutes-and-a-baseball-bat/170932/30 "2003-04-25T17:07:47Z")
What’s this talk about rape? 50 slashes to the back should do it. Then rub the wounds in salt. Then rub them in honey and release the fire ants. Feed the remains to the tigers. Hey just an idea, the baseball bat works as well. Another depressing animal abuse story ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Spit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/76d3ee/32.png) [@Spit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spit)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2003, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/90-tigers-found-dead-at-calif-home-can-i-please-have-5-minutes-and-a-baseball-bat/170932/31 "2003-04-26T02:10:02Z")
Well vitriol against this asshole aside…Why is he keeping them in the first place? It seems like a job for someone who genuinely loves big cats, because I don’t see a lot of money being made here. Could he have been saying that he had X amount of tigers in order to get donations? If that is the case, then we are talking fraud as well. ---
**Author:** ![Zabali\_Clawbane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/ecd19e/32.png) [@Zabali\_Clawbane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zabali_Clawbane)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2003, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/90-tigers-found-dead-at-calif-home-can-i-please-have-5-minutes-and-a-baseball-bat/170932/32 "2003-04-26T02:26:56Z")
I agree with **Coldfire**. Why can’t they take custody of animals until the accused is proven innocent or guilty? Sadly, I’d say the reason is that the state doesn’t have the funding to do this. ☹ I wish it were possible though. I think the ASPCA in New York does this kind of thing, but I don’t know for certain to what extent, or in what circumstances. The states don’t have money to properly educate children, or help the disabled with needful medical expenses [link](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=175189), much less money to help the homeless or people trying to get out of abusive situations. (I know people who work in a battered women’s shelter, their funding is being reduced.) I wish that the people in charge of the current budget really understood the damage caused by reducing the funds for these things. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Fyodor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/958977/32.png) [@Fyodor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fyodor)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2003, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/90-tigers-found-dead-at-calif-home-can-i-please-have-5-minutes-and-a-baseball-bat/170932/33 "2003-04-26T03:36:54Z")
A couple of months ago I was channel surfing and stopped and watched a documentary for a while on a man who ran a rescue place for tigers. He started in Las Vegas with just a few neglected tigers and grew very quickly. At the end of the documentary it was said that he had been given a huge chunk of real estate to expand his operation. It was all volunteer and survived on donations. He got a little bit of money out of the casinos that use up a lot of tigers in their shows. Tigers poured in from all over the U.S.A., there’s all kinds of rich drug dealers and strippers and idiot pop stars and celebrities and shoestring carnivals that can buy tigers somewhere, and then neglect or abandon them when they’re sick of cleaning up tiger shit. I thought I saw something in the documentary saying you can legally buy tigers from some business somehwere in the U.S. This may have been the same tiger rescue guy so sympathetically portrayed in the documentary, an obvious eccentric, well meaning, filling an almost impossible role. If it was the same guy, and it must be, all you people who want to see this guy anally raped in jail or beaten to death or fed alive to beasts…the usual doper chorus…might want to consider the impossible task, the millions of dollars required, to care for and feed 90 (!) tigers, neurotic screwed up unhealthy tigers, tigers who can kill a full grown human in a heartbeat, cast off by their owners. Looks to me like he failed in his mission. I guess he should have thrown in the towel earlier, called in the appropriate authorities, and watched all the tigers be humanely put down. Tough thing to do for an eccentric who has dedicated his life to trying to save the hordes of cast-off pet tigers. As usual there’s a lot more to this story than first meets the eye. ---
**Author:** ![presidebt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c37758/32.png) [@presidebt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/presidebt)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2003, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/90-tigers-found-dead-at-calif-home-can-i-please-have-5-minutes-and-a-baseball-bat/170932/34 "2003-04-26T04:01:59Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Coldfire \* > \*\*If someone’s accused of molesting their kids, the kids are taken into custody until the accused is aquited. Why not with tigers? \*\* It looks as if at least ten of them were… > [@](#): > > quoted from the cited article:\*\* > > Weinhart, who is licensed by the state to keep tigers and other big cats, is scheduled to stand trial next month in San Bernardino County on 10 misdemeanor charges stemming from what prosecutors say was improper care of tigers. > > The state Department of Fish and Game removed 10 tiger cubs from Tiger Rescue in November, saying the sanctuary in Colton didn’t have the proper permits for the cubs and the agency was concerned about their welfare. \*\* …and now, all of them. There may be any number of reasons the authorities may not have been fully aware of the situation in November. At least they’re in better hands now. ---
**Author:** ![Typo\_Negative](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/typo_negative/32/484_2.png) [@Typo\_Negative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Negative)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2003, 7:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/90-tigers-found-dead-at-calif-home-can-i-please-have-5-minutes-and-a-baseball-bat/170932/35 "2003-04-26T07:05:02Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Lemur866 \* > \*\* Idiots get a tiger cub for a pet, cub grows into a 500 pound killing machine, and they decide to get rid of it. Except they can’t get rid of it, since every rescue slot is already full. . \*\* You mean it’s actually _legal_ to get a tiger cub as pet??? :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: Someone tell me this isn’t true. ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2003, 7:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/90-tigers-found-dead-at-calif-home-can-i-please-have-5-minutes-and-a-baseball-bat/170932/36 "2003-04-26T07:14:36Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by spooje \* > \*\*You mean it’s actually _legal_ to get a tiger cub as pet??? > > :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: > > Someone tell me this isn’t true. \*\* It’s true. There’s some complicated paperwork involved, but you can have nearly _any_ animal you want as a pet. ---
**Author:** ![vixXxen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/df788c/32.png) [@vixXxen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vixXxen)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2003, 11:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/90-tigers-found-dead-at-calif-home-can-i-please-have-5-minutes-and-a-baseball-bat/170932/37 "2003-04-26T11:21:45Z")
Why keep any other animal anyway… a dog is a best mans friend…and tigers are animals for the jungle not the back yard:| ---
**Author:** ![the\_great\_dalmuti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b2d939/32.png) [@the\_great\_dalmuti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_great_dalmuti)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2003, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/90-tigers-found-dead-at-calif-home-can-i-please-have-5-minutes-and-a-baseball-bat/170932/38 "2003-04-26T19:32:58Z")
Yep. Because those tiger’s lives are worth SO MUCH MORE than the lives of the cows and chickens you ate for lunch and dinner yesterday. That makes sense. ---
**Author:** ![jack\_ss](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c77e96/32.png) [@jack\_ss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jack_ss)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2003, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/90-tigers-found-dead-at-calif-home-can-i-please-have-5-minutes-and-a-baseball-bat/170932/39 "2003-04-26T21:57:15Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by the\_great\_dalmuti \* > \*\*Yep. Because those tiger’s lives are worth SO MUCH MORE than the lives of the cows and chickens you ate for lunch and dinner yesterday. That makes sense. \*\* Yeah, I guess you’re right. we should take care of the captive tiger population by eating them :rolleyes. I have raised my own chickens and rabbits. They were kept in humane conditions until I killed and ate them. ---
**Author:** ![Doc\_Nickel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/5fc32e/32.png) [@Doc\_Nickel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doc_Nickel)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2003, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/90-tigers-found-dead-at-calif-home-can-i-please-have-5-minutes-and-a-baseball-bat/170932/40 "2003-04-26T22:42:30Z")
(makes note to self) Kill… _then_ eat. Man, I knew I was doing _something_ wrong. (Hey, I was trying to do a joke about [Pets.com](http://Pets.com) and mailorder tigers, but I got nothin’.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/90-tigers-found-dead-at-calif-home-can-i-please-have-5-minutes-and-a-baseball-bat/170932.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/90-tigers-found-dead-at-calif-home-can-i-please-have-5-minutes-and-a-baseball-bat/170932.md?page=3)