report was that a tiger was shot at 15 yards with a tranquilizer, went nuts and took off and was killed before it ran off.
So is anyone else assuming the monkey is riding the wolf, combining the wolf’s speed with the monkey’s craftiness to avoid capture?
Nitpick fail. My edit said “the system.” It’s like if I nitpicked your comment out point out that, of course, humans don’t make decisions. Only brains make decisions.
This. This whole story makes me very, very sad. I love cats of all kinds. If this moron wanted to off himself, why didn’t he just do it? Why did he have to guarantee that these beautiful animals would have to die along with him?
I hate people sometimes. I really do.
Look, you have experienced analogy fail. It’s OK, it happens to the best of us.
You want something that is predatorial and deadly but that is still allowed to exist freely in our society. A car is deadly but is not a predator and therefore does not fit the bill.
There were also 48 animals that escaped. Even if tranquilizing one had been a really great option (they did try to tranquilize one tiger, but it started to run away after the dart hit), it wouldn’t have been feasible to do it 48 times, transport 48 animals, and find places to take care of all 48.
Right there with you.
I can only assume that the idiot who loosed them was batshit crazy and thought he was doing them a favor so they wouldn’t starve to death. “Oh they can hunt, they’ll be fine…” Yeah, they can hunt for breakfast down the street at the elementary school playground. :eek:
Otherwise, I can’t imagine what would be going through someone’s head to put an entire community at serious risk AND cause the death of some really pretty, endangered puddy tats.
Also (and someone can please correct me if I’m wrong) the impression I got from the press conference was that you can’t just shoot the tranquilizer dart from far away. It sounds like the veterinarian that attempted to tranquilize the tiger you mention here had to get pretty damn close to it in order to shoot the dart. And they couldn’t just let it run away because they didn’t know if the tranquilizer was enough to bring it down. (Nobody knew the exact weights of any of the animals, or when they’d last eaten.)
The director of the Ohio Humane Society supports the decision to kill the animals. “We think they did their job.”
That was exactly my first thought, kind of a Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Mutton Bustin’.
Not to mention the people the animals could have killed. The only good thing about this whole story is that this piece of shit Terry Thompson is dead.
The monkey alertely sensed trouble brewing. I have now heard that it is the only animal unaccounted for.
I haven’t been posting for a VERY long time, but…sigh. This is my original hometown. I’m so sad about the loss of these beautiful animals, but I know Zanesville well, and there is no way the town has the resources to have tranquilized and captured even a small portion of these animals. The nearest city (Columbus) is almost an hour by car, so we’re talking about the police force cooling their heels for a couple of hours if they had waited for experienced animal handlers with tranquilzer guns/cages. This is a very residential area with an Interstate running through, and there is no doubt that the poor animals were scared. If they had waited before killing, then we’d all be outraged over the idiot police officers who gave a bunch of freaked-out wild animals a 90-minute head start.
Many people online are expressing their outrage at the animal killings, but I think the real villain in this story is the asshole who irresponsibly kept the animals and then set them free as part of his final act of cowardice.
Unfortunately they now think they’ve found it hiding in a tiger’s stomach.
Jack Hanna’s is such a terrible situation. He’s been a supporter of animals for decades. Ran a zoo. All sorts of things. For decades he was the guy that brought wild animals to the Tonight Show.
His explanation for the shooting of the animals makes sense. As much everyone loves animals, they just couldn’t be allowed to kill humans. Jack makes a good point that his people couldn’t tranquillize those lions/tigers in the dark. You can’t see where the dart lands. You don’t know if the animal is out or waiting to kill you.
There was a big neighborhood with families and kids close by. It’s a such a shame that the animals had to be taken down. I’m just glad no kids got killed.
Ya know, if is were just emus and giraffes or something I might go for that argument, but Zanesville had full-grown tigers that had zero fear of human beings prowling around the neighborhood. We’re food to predators like that. There were 18 tigers, 17 lions, bears, mountain lions, leopards…
CNN reports that one of the tigers after an attempt to tranquilize it didn’t work and the animal became aggressive. There *was *an attempt made to capture animals alive, and those that they did capture have been taken in by a zoo where they will be properly cared for. But seriously, if people are out there trying to capture a grizzly bear or tiger or lion and the animal starts to charge them what do you expect them to do? Stand there and be mauled?
At least one of the animals was killed not by a bullet but by a moving vehicles when it attempted to cross a road.
The tragedy didn’t start with cops untrained in animal control having to shoot animals, it started with the jackass who not only kept them, but opened their cages before shooting himself.
Unfortunate timing for that Cameron Crowe/Matt Damon “We Bought a Zoo” movie.
There was a hoax like this in New York a long time ago about how animals had been let loose from the zoo, now its actually happened.
What a beautiful animal. Though it strikes my how skinny it looks. Is that a normal weight for a mountain lion?
I loved that! Particularly when mountain lion meets statue of mountain lion. I’ll bet it attracted them. Like a duck lure.