http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/12/30/MN00U6PR7.DTL S.F. ZOO TIGER ATTACK BELOVED BUT BELEAGUERED ZOO GROTTO DESIGN: Keepers say many people were aware of potential for tigers to escape; 2 victims released from hospital
Steve Rubenstein, Chronicle Staff Writer Sunday, December 30, 2007 Carlos Sousa Sr. (with glasses) at the vigil for his son ... The two San Jose brothers mauled by a tiger on Christmas were released from a San Francisco hospital on Saturday, hospital officials said. Paul Dhaliwal, 19, and Kulbir Dhaliwal, 23, were escorted from a little-used side door on the north side of San Francisco General Hospital, according to a hospital spokeswoman, and whisked away in a sedan without comment. Their discharge came hours before a vigil for their friend Carlos Sousa Jr., 17, who was killed by the 300-pound Siberian tiger at the San Francisco Zoo. After the incident, the two brothers were rushed to the hospital and underwent emergency surgery for claw and bite wounds to their heads and upper bodies. The release of the injured brothers came as zoo officials and federal inspectors were still trying to figure out how the tiger escaped from its outdoor grotto shortly after closing time on Christmas afternoon. But escaping from an enclosure at the zoo is not beyond the ability of a Siberian tiger, according to a retired longtime keeper and other zoo veterans interviewed by The Chronicle. And many people who worked at the zoo knew it, the keeper said. The keeper, who spent decades at the zoo and asked not to be publicly identified, said he got the word about Siberian tigers - and the apparently inadequate 12 1/2-foot-high moat wall that protects the public from them - in a most dramatic fashion, not long after he began working at the zoo. "I was putting a sign up in front of the tiger exhibit, with my butt hanging over the edge," said the former keeper. "The cat was pacing back and forth at the bottom of the grotto." The keeper said one of his more seasoned colleagues happened by, grabbed him by the belt loop and jerked him back, away from the edge. "He shared the secret that people knew - the cat could jump up and take me down," the keeper said. And well known in zoo lore is the story about an entomologist who, as a teenage science student in the late 1950s, visited the tiger grotto with former zoo director Carey Baldwin to see if the enclosure was secure enough to contain the tiger. "Mr. Baldwin had been told by one of the zookeepers that the tiger might be able to escape by jumping across the moat and onto the flowerbed between the public guard rail and the moat," the entomologist, David Rentz, recalled in a posting on his Web log. "We got a large piece of meat and tied it to a long bamboo pole and approached the tiger enclosure. We were at the other end of the bamboo pole - about 15 feet away from the meat. Baldwin held the pole at the edge of our side of the moat. Once the tiger saw it, he literally flew across the moat from his position on the other side, grabbed the meat, and sprung back to the grotto all in one graceful movement. "It happened so quickly that it was hard to believe what we had seen," Rentz said Saturday in a telephone interview from his home in Queensland, Australia. "It scared the hell out of me. It scared the hell out of both of us. "Then Mr. Baldwin closed the tiger's access to the outside - supposedly forever," Rentz wrote on his Web log. "Notes were left to the zookeepers to never let this tiger outside again." Another veteran keeper who still works at the zoo agreed that an excited, provoked or agitated animal can perform physical feats that would be impossible under normal circumstances. "The barriers are always suspect in a situation like this," the keeper said. "Under ordinary circumstances, they would be adequate. If the animal was excited, if people started throwing things, it would be different. "Obviously we are going to have to look at better barriers," said the keeper, who, like his colleague, asked not to be identified, as zoo officials have forbidden employees from talking about the mauling. Meanwhile, at the Oakland Zoo, officials said they plan to make the walls around their tiger habitat higher to prevent escapes. The walls now range from 13 1/2 to 16 feet. At the San Francisco Zoo, insiders say nighttime security and animal care have deteriorated over the years. There are no keepers on duty after the zoo closes at 5 p.m., despite recommendations for around-the-clock keepers from the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, the organization that accredits zoos. The night keepers were eliminated about 10 years ago to save money. At night, only one or two security guards now patrol the entire 100-acre facility. And a public address system that could have warned zoo visitors about the tiger escape and urged them to take shelter or evacuate the grounds was dismantled about 15 years ago, after zoo neighbors complained about the noisy announcements from the loudspeakers. Zoo administrators say the facility will reopen to the public Thursday, although the large cats will not be on exhibit in the outdoor enclosures. It was not immediately known what other changes will be made in exhibits or security procedures. Zoo officials were not returning calls or answering questions on Saturday. The zoo Web site had no information about the most tragic event in its 78-year history, except for a one-sentence announcement saying the zoo would not reopen until Thursday "due to the incident on Christmas." At the vigil Saturday night outside the house of his grandmother in San Jose, Sousa was mourned and remembered by a crowd of 80 or so people, who carried candles and sometimes wept. Standing on the porch in front of enlarged photos of himself and his son, a choked-up Carlos Sousa Sr. said: "My son, Carlos, was a very good boy and a normal kid, and he had a lot of friends. ... I want you to remember all the good things he did and carry that in your heart as long as you can. He will always be in my heart." Chronicle staff writer Robert Selna contributed to this report. E-mail Steve Rubenstein at [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/12/30/MN00U6PR7.DTL
