Terrible accident, but what makes it even worse is they bring in this putz Jeff Corwin, from a getting long list of ANIMAL PLANET "experts" to "patch" it and offer an opinion. I am making sure my will expressly states, Only Josip Marcan will be allowed to tell the tale of what happened, if I should go down.
An animal handler with thousands of hours of experience has died after being mauled by a 1,000-pound lion-tiger hybrid he was feeding at an Oklahoma animal sanctuary.
Peter Getz, 32, had entered the big cat’s enclosure on Wednesday while it was feeding, a violation of standard procedures. The hybrid cat, called a liger, bit Getz on the neck and back before other handlers rescued him and called 911. He was taken to a Tulsa hospital, where he died Thursday night.
A powerful creature
On Friday, Animal Planet host Jeff Corwin told TODAY’s Matt Lauer that Getz broke the cardinal rule of dealing with large carnivores.
Getz had been a volunteer for more than a year at Safari’s Wildlife Sanctuary in Broken Arrow, Okla., and reportedly had thousands of hours of experience dealing with animals at the Tulsa Zoo.
“We try to have all the procedures in place, but for some reason, they weren't followed this time,” Lori Ensign, the sanctuary’s owner, told NBC affiliate KJRH in Oklahoma. “In all my years, we've stressed that whatever you do, you don't open that gate.”
Food is put on a pole that is inserted through the fence to feed the animals. It’s deer season in Oklahoma, and Ensign said that the liger may have been more excited than normal because he was being fed raw venison.
Lion-tiger crossbreed
The liger, a cross between a male lion and female tiger, is named Rocky. Ensign said the animal was donated to the sanctuary, which houses 200 animals, most of them either rescued or donated. She told KJRH that when Rocky was growing up, she used to ride him like a horse and that he has a gentle nature.
But Corwin told Lauer that it doesn’t matter how gentle a predator may be.
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TODAY A liger is the product of crossbreeding between a male lion and a female tiger. |
It remains unknown why Getz entered the enclosure. An investigation by local authorities will attempt to determine that, and will decide whether Rocky should be allowed to live or be put down.
“In many situations, the animal is destroyed because it has connected in a negative way and a dangerous way to human beings, and the truth is there’s an increased opportunity for this animal to become even more dangerous,” Corwin told Lauer.
Texas tigers
There are other questions behind the story, Corwin went on. “What it really echoes to is a bigger situation, which is keeping these exotics in captivity for nonlegitimate purposes in the first place,” he said. “This is a rescue center, but what is the individual history of that liger? How did it get there?”
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Animal Planet’s Jeff Corwin said that Rocky the liger may have to be put down. |
“If you went to India today, you would find that there are less tigers living there than there are in the state of Texas, where the laws and regulations are incredibly loose,” Corwin said. He added that every year, “There are probably 10 people or more that are critically injured, in some cases killed, by tigers, and it’s happening in our own country.”
Ensign, the park owner, said that her sanctuary has closed since the accident. She did not say when it might reopen.
The sanctuary is a nonprofit wildlife refuge. All staff members are volunteers. It is licensed and regulated through the Oklahoma Wildlife Department and the U.S. Department of Agriculture and is subject to the same rules as public zoos.
Courtesy of Josip Marcan
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5 comments:
Wade, from 1997 to 1999 I volunteered at a "non-profit sanctuary" an hour and a half away from my house. The 40 x 20 enclosure was barred and contained a male and female lion, and a male and female tiger; at one time it contained more. The perimeter fence was chain link. Incredibly, there were no lockout cages, and the staff and volunteers went in with the animals to rake the poop out of the pea gravel. I never went in with them, but I derived great pleasure from petting them through the bars, and was grateful to the sanctuary owner for the opportunity. They had a circus cage, and we would take the tigress out to places like a corporate picnic, and a magic show. After I left, they took her to a pre-season kick-off for the Detroit Tigers. All the animals were declawed "to keep them from hurting each other". The tigress liked to put her face up to the bars for kisses on the muzzle, and we were happy to oblige her. The male tiger would lay in his water-filled trough next to the bars, and I would run his tail through my hands. I used to love to sink my hands and fingers into the lion's mane (as you know, it is nowhere near as soft as it looks), and the lioness once reached through the bars and knocked my glasses off my face. We thought all of this was wonderful and exciting. Why? Because one of my heroes at the time, a famous magician, did these kinds of things. After the horrible accident, I woke up and thought "OMG! WHAT WAS I THINKING?" While I still find these beautiful animals thrilling, I would never do anything like this again. Joe just reminded me that a female volunteer there was mauled when she went into a cage in the house, where a sick lion was being cared for, on her hands and knees to pick up a piece of poop.
Mary Ann
Mary Ann,
Luckily for you, your message was delivered to other first, before it came to you.
Wade
"It’s deer season in Oklahoma, and Ensign said that the liger may have been more excited than normal because he was being fed raw venison".
WOW
I maybe just a buffoon, but isn't all their diet "RAW" I know another guy who went in a cage he shouldn't have and was bitten, he lucked out plain and simple, and gets to tell the story. Fact is, when you open the door and walk in, you better have your ID., game plan, and your shit together, cause even with all that it can turn out bad. And if you have to go so far as patching with what you fed that day, you should not be any where near a big cat period. My sympathies to the family of the volunteer.
Oh yeah,
Jeff Corwin is a moron!
Casey,
I think she was referring to the fact that they feed them chicken, as do most "petting zoo" types. It is proven that chicken keeps them some what lethargic, and beef or red meat wind's a cat up. It is the exclusive diet of performing felines in Mexico for that reason. In addition to it being cheaper to purchase, the effect of it keeping them less active is the bonus for some. They all start having trouble when the free road kill starts coming in, in the fall.
Wade
You will also note, the Tiglon not Liger, as Matt Laure said it's father was a tiger, laying in the 3 sizes to small tub eating a stick, when the tape opens. Apparently it got the small stick they were feeding him with, so the got the big aluminum pole to continue for the camera. It was probably done initially to keep him there in the tub or at least in one area. Possibly because other cat's were fed in the enclosure, and it kept them from fighting, or so somebody could go in an do something. I can see no other reason to feed him chunks of meat off of a stick. It is normally used to isolate the animal, unless they were doing a "paw examination" as was the lady from the London zoo.
Wade
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