[magkelly]

There are some really sad pics being posted today in the news about the large scale animal animal slaughter in OH. So many fine, beautiful animals, killed. That poor guy. He must have been very sick to do what he did. The pics are just haunting though. I think they will stay with me for a long, long time...

[sebberry]

I was shocked when I saw that on the news. Why couldn't conservation officers have been called in? There must have been a better way to have handled this.

[dgaies]

I agree the whole situation is very unfortunate, and while it would have been nice if the animals could have been captured instead of killed, my understanding is that wasn't practical and the threat to the public was too great. These weren't exactly stray dogs on the loose.

[v5planet]

I agree the whole situation is very unfortunate, and while it would have been nice if the animals could have been captured instead of killed, my understanding is that wasn't practical and the threat to the public was too great. These weren't exactly stray dogs on the loose.

I agree with this. It's really tragic, but these were wild animals in an unfamiliar location, and highly capable of inflicting damage if scared or provoked. You can only imagine how hard this would hit the news if some innocent kid was mauled by a tiger because the police were waiting for tranquilizer darts to take effect.

CNN had a short video showing a few of the animals which were recovered alive and have been transported to the Columbus Zoo.

[Bob from Aus]

What is a private person doing with these animals? Freedom should not be freedom to kill off our world or take everything we want. Every one who owns a private firearm unless it is for farming or controlling introduced pest animals should be made to trade it in for a camera.

[magkelly]

The man had all the proper permits and from all accounts he loved them and treated them fairly well. He was apparently rescuing animals with issues, much as Tippi Hedren does. He ran a sanctuary basically only unlike Tippi he didn't open his menagerie to the public, which in the end probably cost him. It costs a lot to keep as many animals as he was keeping and he was doing badly at raising money for them. They can't find homes in zoos for every unwanted tiger or lion unfortunately. He must have totally lost it to have released them all as he did, but there was no way they could have contained so many big cats all at once.

They were blood maddened too which probably didn't help. He shot himself in front of them, lay there bleeding. Only one cat bit him apparently and they tore up a couple of monkeys. I am actually surprised there wasn't more of that. Blood being spilled like that, must have gotten all of them riled up. Fortunately they had been fed recently but still, they were rushing the people trying to dart them. They were too overwrought and likely to kill someone. I don't think they really had much choice. They were trying to dart them. There were just too many and they were too excited, but it was like 40 big cats, and they were all acting aggressive. It was a horrible situation. Those vets they were just devastated to have to kill them, so were the police. 18 of them were rare Bengal tigers and those are not very prevalent anymore in the wild. They've got programs all over the world trying to breed them to keep them from going extinct, and here they have to put down 18.

I didn't want to post links, too horrible, but the pics I saw this morning, they made me just cry. What a waste, all those dead carcasses. That poor man and his wife. It was just awful.

[jac]

I suspect that he had no malicious intent in releasing them. I would like to think that in his last and desperate moments, he aberrantly believed that he was giving them the freedom which he no doubt felt they ought to have in his more lucid moments. Pity.

[wasser]

Although these animals may have been "well fed" in the late afternoon of Tuesday. Come morning they would have been quite hungry and this outcome was far better than a single person who may have potentially been killed.

What is a private person doing with these animals? Freedom should not be freedom to kill off our world or take everything we want. Every one who owns a private firearm unless it is for farming or controlling introduced pest animals should be made to trade it in for a camera.

Firearms rights are a pretty solid in the US. And this really has nothing to do with this story. In this story the only privately owned firearm was Mr Thompson's. Being a farmer you've exempted him from your rule and he would have died any way. The rest of the firearms used to "kill off our world" were used by law enforcement officials doing what they felt was in the best interest of the public.

[audiobomber]

IMO there's double standard shown in this story. Tigers and other dangerous animals kill lots of people annually. Many people who live near tigers would like to see them killed off because of the danger. The world of course wants them preserved, and the cost of some human lives is an acceptable tradeoff. It's a particularly easy trade to make for people who don't live near tigers. When the tigers are in America, they must be killled immediately, lest a single person is hurt. I understand the sentiment, but I wonder what Indian villagers would think of this story? The logical conclusion is that American lives are more important than tigers' lives, while Indian lives are less important than tigers' lives.

Good can come from this tragedy if governments see the folly of continued private ownership of exotic animals. End it now.

[littledrawe]

It was a shame how they handled it!! I would like to think there is a huge number of people they could have contacted that would have volunteered their time to go up there and participate in a rescue operation. Instead, the local police seemed to take in their own hands and shoot first, ask questions later. Very unfortunate.

[reeftool]

I think it all came down to money. The local authorities solved the problem quickly and cheaply. These animals weren't really wild and have relied on some sort of human feeding for years and probably could have been easily trapped on garbage pickup day. They also didn't have people available with the skills to trap the animals. Where I live, there are millions of wilderness acres bordering most towns and wildlife do wander into town at times. It's usually bears or coyotes. They are quickly trapped and relocated but we also have local people who are skilled at performing the job.

[dgaies]

IMO there's double standard shown in this story. Tigers and other dangerous animals kill lots of people annually. Many people who live near tigers would like to see them killed off because of the danger. The world of course wants them preserved, and the cost of some human lives is an acceptable tradeoff. It's a particularly easy trade to make for people who don't live near tigers. When the tigers are in America, they must be killled immediately, lest a single person is hurt. I understand the sentiment, but I wonder what Indian villagers would think of this story? The logical conclusion is that American lives are more important than tigers' lives, while Indian lives are less important than tigers' lives.

Good can come from this tragedy if governments see the folly of continued private ownership of exotic animals. End it now.

I respectfully disagree with your conclusion. The fact that protecting the lives of the people who were threatened by the release of these animals into a residential area was the top priority doesn't allow one to draw any conclusions about the relative importance of American vs Indian lives. I have no issue in putting a higher value on a single human life over that of a group of animals and feel it would have been far more tragic had a single person lost their life as compared to all of the animals. I would feel the same way whether the individual life in question was that of an American or an Indian.

[audiobomber]

I have no issue in putting a higher value on a single human life over that of a group of animals and feel it would have been far more tragic had a single person lost their life as compared to all of the animals. I would feel the same way whether the individual life in question was that of an American or an Indian.

From Wiki anwers (Q/How_many_people_are_killed_by_tigers):

"About sixty a year are killed in India alone. Figures for Vietnam, Thailand, Laos and Sumatra indicate a few deaths from each country every year. Tigers have always been the cat most likely to prey on humans and one tigress killed over 436 people in the early 1900's. At that time, however, there were many more tigers than today."

There are about 1500 wild tigers left. They kill several dozen people annually. Using your scale of human vs animal value, they should be wiped out, no?

[v5planet]

From Wiki anwers (Q/How_many_people_are_killed_by_tigers):

"About sixty a year are killed in India alone. Figures for Vietnam, Thailand, Laos and Sumatra indicate a few deaths from each country every year. Tigers have always been the cat most likely to prey on humans and one tigress killed over 436 people in the early 1900's. At that time, however, there were many more tigers than today."

There are about 1500 wild tigers left. They kill several dozen people annually. Using your scale of human vs animal value, they should be wiped out, no?

While I don't entirely disagree with your sentiment about the perceived value of human lives far away from us, I think there's a critical point you're missing here.

The tigers in India are native there and grew up in the wild. Conflict occurs at points of human encroachment, when it happens at all. The tigers and lions owned by this man in Ohio grew up in cages and were set free into a non-native, residential habitat. I have a feeling if a zoo tiger got loose in India it would be shot if it couldn't be captured quickly, because the animal would be used to dealing with human beings on a regular basis and is therefore no longer truly wild.

None of the animals in that private collection would have been candidates for release into the wild, or probably even for breeding programs. Their contribution to global population estimates for each of their representative species are therefore irrelevant from the perspective of meaningful conservation, as tragic as having to swiftly deal with them was.

[dgaies]

From Wiki anwers (Q/How_many_people_are_killed_by_tigers):

"About sixty a year are killed in India alone. Figures for Vietnam, Thailand, Laos and Sumatra indicate a few deaths from each country every year. Tigers have always been the cat most likely to prey on humans and one tigress killed over 436 people in the early 1900's. At that time, however, there were many more tigers than today."

There are about 1500 wild tigers left. They kill several dozen people annually. Using your scale of human vs animal value, they should be wiped out, no?

I contend that the situation is different when you are talking about an area where tigers are clearly not native, and where there is not realistic expectation of being killed by a tiger when living in that area. In the case of a residential area in Ohio, one has a reasonable expecation of not being killed by a tiger. Should a group of tigers escape (or are lillegally released) from captivity in such an area, I stand by my position that killing the tigers to prevent the loss of a single human life is both approriate and prudent.

I don't know if the dozens of deaths that you cited from wikipedia are from similar situations. If in fact they are from tigers being held in captivity that escape, then I see no reason why the same rules should not apply. If, however, they are tigers who are living in their native envirorments, then people living (explicitly or implicitly) accept a certain risk by doing do. I am not advocating hunting down and eliminating the species because they have the capacity to kill humans. By that logic should we destroy every domesticated dog in the world because occasionally one kills a person? Of course not. But if a group of dogs, say ones who were used in dog fighting and trained to be vicious, were to escape and could not be captured before they posed a risk to human life, I would most certainly advocate taking any steps needed to protect those living in the area.

Once again, my point was simply addressing the notion that you can draw the conclusion that American lives are somehow more valuable than Indian lives based on the reaction to this situation.