White Tiger Mauls Roy In Vegas

**Logan** · 10-06-2003, 12:54 PM

I've never seen their show, so maybe I'm not supposed to be speaking up, but something tell me that if there were any issues with the way these Tigers are treated in capitivity by Siegfried and Roy, then we would have heard about it before now, and something would have been done about it long ago. This is a risk that I am sure they understood when they started doing this years ago. I do NOT think he got what he deserved, but probably will say (provided he can speak about it one day) that it is a risk he understood and was willing to take.

I just pray that he will be ok. And I pray that the Tiger will be well cared for, even if he never goes back on stage. This is a horrible incident, and one that we should all feel badly about, for the animal and for the trainer.

**2kitties** · 10-06-2003, 01:04 PM

It's a tragedy and I certaily hope he recovers. But, not to sound cruel, it's sort of like the rest of the headlines you see: Race Car Driver Dies In Crash, SkyDiver Loses Chute, Trapeze Artist Injured in Fall, Fire Eater Burns Tongue...

It is one of those things that really just shouldn't shock us too much.

I know S&R did much for animals and certainly treated their own very very well. It confuses me, though, that they bred their animals for captivity. While they treated them very well, it just seems strange that they did very little in terms of helping the wild population of white tigers or tigers in general.

The tiger is a wild animal no matter how you see it. It did what instinct told it to do. I'm wondering if it got some kind of electric shock by the microphone by accident. Or maybe it just got friggin tired of being a sideshow and got pissed off.

**RICHARD** · 10-06-2003, 01:10 PM

The Manticore was one of my favorite mythic animals.....

man·ti·core

Etymology: Middle English, from Latin mantichora, from Greek mantichOras

a legendary animal with the head of a man, the body of a lion, and the tail of a dragon or scorpion.

**Cheshirekatt** · 10-06-2003, 01:26 PM

Originally posted by RICHARD
The Manticore was one of my favorite mythic animals.....

man·ti·core

Etymology: Middle English, from Latin mantichora, from Greek mantichOras

a legendary animal with the head of a man, the body of a lion, and the tail of a dragon or scorpion.

Me too. One was prominently featured in Piers Anthony's book A Spell For Chameleon.

**RICHARD** · 10-06-2003, 02:51 PM

Originally posted by Cheshirekatt
Me too. One was prominently featured in Piers Anthony's book A Spell For Chameleon.

Great book!

When I was a kid I really respected Marlin Perkins
(Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom) and him sitting in the chair of his 'study', sending out his flunky to wrestle allligators and stuff.

I'm a bit more intolerant of the 'Animal Guys'-

By Crikey! Let's go look for an endangered species
to wrestle!!!!

No matter what or how nicely those tigers were treated, as was alluded to earlier, there always is the chance that any animal will do the "WHEN ANIMALS GO NUTS" thing on a person. You really can't blame the animal, it's been hardwired for it's behavior for a long time.

Domesticated is just a nice word that says you can trust the animal you live with 99.9% of the time.

It's that .1% that people either forget, ignore or
just don't realize.

**catland** · 10-06-2003, 03:21 PM

I know the damage my eight pound (3.6kg) cat can inflict on me when she's in a foul mood. It doesn't take too much of a stretch of the imagination to imagine 50 times her ferocity or temper.

**Cheshirekatt** · 10-06-2003, 03:25 PM

Originally posted by RICHARD
When I was a kid I really respected Marlin Perkins
(Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom) and him sitting in the chair of his 'study', sending out his flunky to wrestle allligators and stuff.

Watch out for those teeth, Jim!

lolololol

**RICHARD** · 10-06-2003, 04:02 PM

Originally posted by Cheshirekatt
Watch out for those teeth, Jim!

lolololol

Never in a thousand years would i have remembered his name.......and who knew Roy had a last name!

catland,

Doesn't any animal sound more ferocious when you give their weight in kilos?

I learned this the hard way.....when stuck in any animals jaw the WORST THING TO DO IS PULL your appendage out from their teeth...in this case I think Roy had no choice...

I do hope he gets better.

**catland** · 10-06-2003, 04:33 PM

Originally posted by RICHARD

catland,

Doesn't any animal sound more ferocious when you give their weight in kilos?

I do hope he gets better.

I also hope he gets better.

I like to do the metric conversions to remind myself and others that we're an international site. and yeah - it does sound like more.

**Twisterdog** · 10-06-2003, 04:52 PM

While they treated them very well, it just seems strange that they did very little in terms of helping the wild population of white tigers or tigers in general.

They actually do a LOT to help wild populations and tigers in general. They have donated millions of dollars of their own money to support habitat conservation efforts, and helping to get tigers in bad captive situations (one for example, housed in a tiny cage in a truck stop parking lot) into better environments.

**Soledad** · 10-06-2003, 06:37 PM

Apparently, the first thing Roy said was "do not kill the tiger."

**luckies4me** · 10-06-2003, 10:14 PM

Yes that was very mean of me to say. I read it wrong. I do hope he recovers and it must be scary. I can see that they love their tigers very much, but I still do not believe it breeding the white tiger as a "novelty", as they do not occur that often in the wild.

I amglad the tiger will remain alive and that he loves him so much as to spare him.

**curiosityrats** · 10-06-2003, 10:55 PM

Originally posted by WolfChan
What happened was this (Getting this info from another forum BTW): Monticore was noticed to be limping slightly. Roy told him to "sit", and when he did not sit Roy tried to gently push him into a sitting position. When bitten, Roy thumped the tier on the nose to try and startle him into letting go, but the microphone in his hand made a "boom" noise, and the tiger did as he should be expected to and attacked the source of the noise. After that, he dragged Roy offstage.

Montecore is not going to be put down. (Huzzah!)

Of course they aren't going to "put down" an endangered species... The magicians do know these animals. This tiger has been performing with them a long time (six years I believe... the "first time" thing was a theatrical gimmick they do every show...), and the guys just didn't recognize he was having an off day. (Magicians, especially ones like these, would never have an animal preform on an "off day." They have other animals trained to take their place...) So, all in all, it is an unfortunate, frightning, and sad story. Not unexpected but not predictable.

The only message I can see in this is that wild animals ARE wild. Even those that are captively bred are still wild. People should always be aware of that. (And I believe Roy is. Even with precautions, things can happen. He dropped the chain lead they use when commanding the tigers too... Another accident that added to the problem.)

The truly upsetting and frightening thing is NOT this incident but the fact that completely ignorant people can aquire many "exotic" animals--including big cats--just on a whim. It is cruel to the animals, dangerous to the people. I hope those people will read the story, get scared, and NEVER get an exotic animal. Roy's tigers are treated well, and he knows their insticts. Why dwell on HIM rather than an inner city drug dealer who gives his girlfriend a pet lion cub (declawed and neutered no less)? Those are the horrific stories. Those are the people who I pray to God were at that show and are scared to death of ever getting NEAR a big cat...

Just my two and a half cents.

**curiosityrats** · 10-06-2003, 11:01 PM

Originally posted by RICHARD
Domesticated is just a nice word that says you can trust the animal you live with 99.9% of the time.

Nah, "domesticated" is an animal removed from any wild heritage by many (hundreds of) generations. An animal that is specifically suited for a life with human beings. Dogs and cats and cows are domesticated (although you are completely right that they retain instincts).

Tigers, even born in captivity, are NOT domesticated in any way, shape, or form. They are exotic. They are wild. They have all their instincts in tact. You don't tame tigers. Training a dog is getting him to do what you want. Training a TIGER is learning how to read him, and him getting what HE wants from you. You can't force a wild animal to do anything. You can only try as hard as you can to understand it and what it is thinking, and how it will react...

**curiosityrats** · 10-06-2003, 11:28 PM

Try this story on for size:

http://www.nynewsday.com/news/local/...headlines-span

Tiger Found In Harlem Apt.
By Wil Cruz and Jeremy Olshan

October 4, 2003, 8:58 PM EDT

A Bengal tiger being kept as a pet in a fifth-floor Harlem apartment was tranquilized and carted away by police Saturday night after a daring descent down the side of the building by cops with sedation darts and a machine gun.

The wild beast did not go quietly. The crowd of several hundred on the street below, which had been transfixed during the hours-long drama, heard a loud roar as the dart hit its mark.

[...]

Police were still searching for Antoine Yates, 36, whom they identified as the man keeping the tiger and a three-foot caiman, a type of crocodile, in the public housing apartment. They were tipped off to the illegal menagerie after Yates was taken to the hospital Wednesday to be treated for animal bites.

Yates told the doctor he had been bitten on his right arm and leg by his pit bull, but the doctors, after examining both fresh and old wounds, were suspicious. Police said they also received an anonymous call about wild animals biting people at Yates' address.

[...]

The golden brown, striped, 6-foot-long tiger, which experts say could easily kill or maim a human, was taken to the Bronx Zoo, where it will stay temporarily before being moved, perhaps to a facility in Ohio, police said. It is healthy and in good condition, officials said.

[...]

"He got the tiger when it was very little some three to five years ago," said a neighbor who would identify himself only as Moe. "That was his pet. It just outgrew him."

An estimated 7,000 tigers are kept privately worldwide, purchased for thousands of dollars on the black market, according to James Doherty, general curator of the Bronx Zoo. "That's well more than all the wild tigers in all of Asia," he said.

Since 1990 at least eight people have been killed by tigers, and more than 60 adults and children have been injured, Doherty said. "They can be tamed, as Sigfried and Roy had done up until night, but I can think of nothing more dangerous or more inhumane than keeping a wild tiger as a pet."