Zoos have a policy of keeping wild animals wild, but if they are on display shouldn't they be socialized...?

Question

If they are born to a captive life shouldn't an animal be socalized so that if it ever does happen to get loose there is less of a risk that it would attack? The tiger attack in Sanfrancisco in AP news? What are your thoughts?

Answer 1

You can socialize tigers all you want- that doesn't make them less dangerous. I have worked with tigers- bottle fed from 10 days old, and kept in the house by humans for the first 2-3 months. By 6 months, that tiger is ready to play, and play rough. By 1 yr, only the most experienced handlers work with them, and there is the daily risk of death from a massive paw or mouth pressing down just a little too hard- a single paw swipe could easily break bones.

Social animals are much easier to work with and get responses from, including them listening and respecting you.
Any solitary animal, which includes pretty much all cats, will not respond the same way to socialization. they may see you as another big cat, but you are just in the way- Solitary animals don't have packs, and will fight with eachother if they see eachother in the wild.

There is pretty much no way socialization could have stopped this.

I am assuming the tiger attacked because of natural responses- the human ran, and became prey or a toy. If you don't run, you aren't as interesting.

Answer 2

First, zoos don't have a policy of keeping the animals wild.
Each animal has it's own history and may be from the wild or from captivity.
I used to work at the San Francisco Zoo and I remember one ferocious snow leopard who used to be a pet before going to the zoo so trying to tame an animal can create some behavior problems. There was Buster, the jaguar, who bit my friend's finger off and he was born in captivity. Buster's mother was in a circus with lots of training and she bit someone's finger off too. Many of the animals from the wild are the best adjusted, but I still would not trust them. Carnivores, whether big like a tiger or small like a house cat kill other animals and eat them raw and don't feel guilty about it. If the zoo could socialize them enough to keep them from attacking humans, then they wouldn't need to be kept in cages and could just walk around with the visitors.

Answer 3

Some animals like tigers can not be socialized. They tolerate others of their kind, but are not social animals. The most you can do is bring them food and keep them well fed. If you do this they probably will not eat you. However tigers are intelligent enough to know that a human is not a tiger. They also know that they are bigger and stronger than us. Worse than that they KNOW we bring them food. THUS HUMAN = FOOD!!!!

See the problem? Since they learn to equate us with food the more socialized they become the better they learn that and the more likely they are to eat someone if they are hungry.

A few years ago a zoo keeper was training another worker who job it was going to be to feed the tigers and other cats. After just telling him to never go into the tiger pen without first making sure they had been fed she steps inside. The tigers knew her well and listened well when fed. This day the food was late. Of course the new person got to watch as the tigers killed his trainer. I never heard weather he actually took the job or not. I always wondered.

BTW That was a true story.

Answer 4

There is no way that wild animals can be socialized. One thing that stands out to me though is that the San. Fran. Zoo must have dreadful safety policies. They said this tiger had attacked a zoo keeper last year, as well as escaping from it's enclosure the other day before it killed the person.
I have never heard of a zoo that can't keep its zookeepers safe and also can't keep its animals in their cages.
If I ever go to the U.S., that zoo is one place I'll be staying well away from.

Answer 5

Wild animals should be left in the wild where they belong.It's a tiger's nature, or instinct to attack and kill. They do it for several reasons.First,to eat to survive,secondly to defend theirselves and their young.Thirdly, they attack when they are harassed or feel threatened.
I guess we'll find out which one of these three it was in a few days. I suspect it was just their wild instinct. When it got loose and people began to run from it, then it's predatory nature took over and it saw the people fleeing from it as prey.
They were programed by God to survive above all else. They do this by using their primary instincts (which they will revert back to in times of confusion)regardless of how socialized they have become.How many times is this sort of thing going to have to happen before people wake up!.It's a dangerous animal even if it was born in captivity.It's programed to be lethal.It is not a domestic house cat.It is a huge,pretatory,flesh eating,animal with instincts leading it's behaviour.

Answer 6

Zoos have no such policy of keeping wild animals wild. The only way they do that is by releasing them. Any captive animal can't be considered totally wild. Especially if it was raised in captivity. They can be powerful and unpredictable, so socializing them wouldn't prevent problems and in fact might cause the population to let their guard down, should the worst happen.

Tigers are mean animals that will kill for sport. They can't be trusted.

Answer 7

No, they should not be socialized. One of the main reasons that animals are kept in zoos in this modern age is to keep a captive breeding stock/to do research/education/etc. If one was to 'tame' these animals, it would make the reasons for keeping the animals void.The tiger attack was a horrible accident and could have been avoided, but 'socializing' the animal, as you put it, is not a definite way to prevent such accidents.

Answer 8

i work at a zoo - there are training sessions that go on with all of the animals in our zoo - but i certainly wouldn't call them tame. they also aren't totally wild - they are somewhere in between. what happened in San Francisco is unfortunate and sad. we may not really know what happened. maybe the guys were teasing the tiger, maybe a zoo employee did something wrong and the tiger was able to escape. maybe something was wrong with the tiger (like rabies or distemper or something) Even trained cats sometimes turn on their owners - Like the Seigfried and Roy tiger attack in Vegas a few years back. and there are lots of cases every year where exotic pet owners get killed or hurt by large cats and other animals. even dogs hurt or kill hundreds of people every year in the USA. animals can be dangerous and they need to be handled and treated with a great deal of respect and care.

Answer 9

There is nothing that can be done to change a wild animal's innate nature. Zoo personnel and visitors are much safer respecting the nature of wild animals, rather than convincing themselves that it can be altered. It cannot.

You can take the animal out of the wild but you cannot take the wild out of the animal.

Answer 10

There is no way to ensure that a big cat will be safe with humans. Look at Siegfried and Roy's tiger, practically a member of the family, yet it got spooked and mauled its owner. The tiger's instincts do not allow it to be a tame animal. It's not their fault.