Connections

Posted by Mandy on January 6th, 2008 filed in Musings

Ben and I were watching Dirty Jobs tonight , where Mike Rowe was shoveling sh!t at the San Francisco Zoo (the Cheese Maker episode–I cannot find info on when it was first aired, and I know it doesn’t mention the zoo, but trust me, that was in it).  One of his final jobs was to prepare the food for the lions and tigers at their daily feeding and then feed them.

Ben and I looked at each other, and wondered if this was the same group of tigers that would have been involved in the recent attack and death.  I am pretty sure it isn’t, because in the episode there is only one Siberian tiger named Tony, and two Sumatran tigers, and the tiger that escaped was a female Siberian tiger (This tiger, named Tatiana, was a more recent addition to the zoo, coming in 2005 as a mate for Tony).  We watched as the food was prepared, and as we continued to watch, I had a very bad feeling; I was pretty sure we were looking at the woman who had her arm ripped apart by the same tiger who would later attack those three kids.

See, the woman that was showing Mike how to prepare the food was also the one feeding the animals with him, and as she did so, she walked right up to the cages and even reached through the bars to rub the cats’ backs.  Her attitude was very laid back, despite the fact that she was dealing with large predators, and she did not seem particularly wary, although she did mention that tigers needed more caution than lions.  In one shot, she has her entire hand and arm in the cage with the tiger handling his food and pushing it towards him.  I’m sorry but you don’t even do this with dogs who have been domesticated for thousands of years.  

At this point, I became certain that this must have been the woman who had been attacked well before the attack and killing last month, and I knew her name since Mike Rowe had introduced her.  I did a quick search on the internet, and yes, it was the same woman. I don’t know if, in the suit that she has brought against the city, they know of this footage because I think it is pretty damning.

Then I did a little more research and it seems like the San Francisco Zoo is very skeevy.  In fact, I have to wonder how the people in charge continue to be in the positions they are, given all of the things that have happened and the truly boneheaded things they have said (that cat was perhaps “just playing” when it tore her arm off and ate it? come on.)   See here for a professional observation,  because I am clearly not a professional, just a smaller softer individual who has deep human-animal memories of being tasty food for predators.