425-pound tiger hunted and killed in LA

The front page of the Thursday, February 24, Los Angeles Times has a story headed, "Trackers Kill Tiger in Ventura County."
Los Angeles Times

It opens:

"Sharpshooters searching for a 425-pound tiger that had prowled the hills of Simi Valley for two weeks shot and killed it Wednesday after a family awoke to find it walking past their backyard.

"The decision by government trackers to use high-powered rifles instead of tranquilizer darts to bring down the elusive cat outraged animal rights activists. But state officials said they had no alternative but to shoot to kill, because the animal could have attacked or bolted onto a highway or into a public park nearby.

"Thus ended a bizarre two-week saga that brought wilderness trappers to suburbia and forced families to keep children and pets indoors after huge cat tracks started being spotted throughout the oak-studded hills of eastern Ventura County."

A spokesman for Fish and Game is quoted:
"Using a tranquilizer gun was an option that was available, but the safety of residents and motorists was of great concern."

But the then the article continues:
"But animal rights activists said death was too high a penalty for an animal that had not harmed anyone since its tracks were discovered Feb. 8 on the grounds of a nursery in the nearby Santa Rosa Valley."

"With all this time to track it and all these options they could draw on, you have to ask the question, was it really necessary to kill the tiger?" said Madeline Bernstein, president of the Los Angeles branch of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

A consulting veterinarian to Tippi Hedren's Shambala Preserve said:
"Fish and Game's attitude is to seek and destroy rather than to protect and serve."

And Tippi Hedren, who according to the report was "livid," is also quoted:

"If they had tranquilized it and it ran away or if it decided to attack a hunter, then kill it. But at least try to sedate it first."

With regard to the cat's background, we read: "Investigators also were trying to figure out where the cat came from. They interviewed a number of residents in the area who hold permits to keep exotic cats, but no one has owned up to the animal, Swauger said. The tiger also could have been kept illegally, he said."

You can read the whole story on line at:
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-tiger24feb24,0,7563060.story?coll=la-home-local OR http://tinyurl.com/4x5vr

The article tells us that the Fish and Game Department was expecting an uproar from animal rights activists due to its choice to shoot first, without giving tranquilization a chance. But perhaps it would be more useful for us to use this opportunity to discuss, in letters to the editor, the miserable lives of most big cats kept in captivity, rather than the violent death of this particular cat. When I think of big cats in captivity I also think of the miserable lives and violent deaths of the hundreds of factory farmed animals each cat eats.

The Los Times takes letters at: letters [at] latimes.com

Always include your full name, address, and daytime phone number when sending a letter to the editor. Shorter letters are more likely to be published.

Yours and the animals',
Karen Dawn


(DawnWatch is an animal advocacy media watch that looks at animal issues in the media and facilitates one-click responses to the relevant media outlets. You can learn more about it, and sign up for alerts at http://www.DawnWatch.com. If you forward or reprint DawnWatch alerts, please do so unedited -- leave DawnWatch in the title and include this tag line.)