Vengeance of the Tiger
The Mystery of whether Big Cats can seek revenge
It is carnal nature for the feline to be governed by instinct. While it’s unfortunate [and tear-jerking] to see a 600-pound big cat wrest a gazelle fawn away from its mother on the National Geographic channel, to a certain degree we understand the predator’s need for sustenance and accept it.
But could such animals ever be driven by something more?
In a San Francisco zoo in the United States, a group of friends decided they had nothing better to do other than taunt a stunning tiger from their relative safety across from the exhibit’s moat.
They would pay for this ill-mannered indiscretion with an innocent person’s life.
In approximately June of 2003, Tatiana came into the world as a bright-eyed tiger cub in her mother’s den at the Denver Zoo. By all accounts, she thrived for the first few years, but the remainder of her life was to be spent at a zoo in San Francisco. Tatiana was transferred there in 2005, where it was hoped that she would successfully form a bond — and have her own cubs — with a fourteen-year-old tiger named Tony, who was kept in waiting for her. Yet, as time unfolded, any hopes that the nursery’s breeding program harbored for Tatiana ultimately ended in a hail of bullets.
Trouble began brewing for Tatiana in 2006. She’d had no history of overt violence or aggression until that point, but it is difficult to say what takes place within the consciousness of a sentient being in captivity.
In Christmas of ‘06, zookeeper Lori Komejan was feeding Tatiana through a grill in the enclosure when the huge animal caught hold of her right arm. Tatiana steadied her grip and yanked Komejan’s arm through the wiring, sinking her three-inch teeth into the soft, human flesh like warm knives through butter.
The traumatized zookeeper was rescued and, luckily for her, was able to salvage her arm through the hard work of the emergency room physicians. The wound was costly, though, both for Komejan and for the zoo. The young woman required multiple surgeries to regain full use of the limb and several cosmetic procedures as well. She would go on to sue staff at the San Francisco facility, settling later for an undisclosed amount.
Meanwhile, the zoo was fined nearly twenty thousand dollars for its oversight and failing to fully protect its workers. It was determined that Tatiana’s enclosure would be remodeled immediately, and the renovations were complete before the decision to re-open the tigers’ enclosure in September 2007.
Tatiana’s final — and fatal — clash with the people who strolled past her enclosure on a daily basis occurred later that same year; again, oddly, at Christmas time.
What happened next would be disputed later, but began with a group of bored teen-agers who decided to proceed with a cruel prank.
After half a day spent imbibing and passing some marijuana joints back and forth, the trio visited the zoo. When they approached Tatiana’s exhibit, they became emboldened and increasingly hostile in their behavior.
One of the boys scooped up a pine-cone and hurled it into Tatiana’s enclosure, and the others followed suit. Another pine-cone was hurled, followed by another, followed by a volley of rocks and other small items that investigators later confirmed must have been used to taunt the female tiger, as these were not items native to or normally found in the zoo’s tiger exhibit.
The hurled objects and verbal taunts continued as Tatiana paced back and forth, becoming increasingly agitated with her tormentors while other zoo visitors began to take notice. A patron by the name of Jennifer Miller later told authorities that one of the teens refused to go along with his friends’ abusive behavior. This teen, identified as 17-year-old Carlos Eduardo Sousa Jr., would be the first to pay for his companions’ crimes, and the only one of them to perish from his injuries.
After the boys moved on, Tatiana decided that her patience had reached its end. What she did next seemed calculated in every way. Intent on taking out her frustration on her tormentors, Tatiana backed up, took a bold leap, and cleared the moat before landing heavily on solid ground. That any of their beloved tigers could have simply jumped out of their exhibit would have seemed not just unthinkable, but impossible to zoo groundskeepers. Yet that was exactly what Tatiana seemed to have done; an inspection of her back paws during a necropsy revealed that bits of concrete were imbedded deeply in and around the pads of Tatiana’s rear feet.
At the unexpected sight of the now-free-roaming Tatiana, visitors shrieked and scrambled for their children. But Tatiana was not interested in them. It was not they who had humiliated her so thoroughly.
Tatiana stalked the zoo methodically, coming across Souza Jr. and setting upon him first. The young teen would have bled out and died almost immediately afterwards, having suffered ‘blunt-force injuries to his head and neck; many punctures and scratches to his head, neck and chest; skull and spinal fractures; and a cut to his jugular vein.’
The next to be targeted were brothers Amritpal “Paul” Dhaliwal (19 years old) and Kulbir Dhaliwal (23 years old). Tatiana honed in on them immediately and the brothers panicked, fleeing for help to a nearby zoo café.
Although it was near closing time, 911 would not be notified until approximately 5:07 PM. This was apparently because (a) workers inside the café thought the screams belonged to someone who was merely mentally ill, and (b) because zoo officials were rushing to implement a lockdown to prevent Tatiana from escaping the premises.
The incensed tiger savaged Amritpal first, then turned on Kulbir. She may have succeeded in killing him had police officers not distracted her from digging into him further. Once she looked up from Kulbir and they had a clear shot, police fired. The bullets dropped her where she stood.
The brothers were hospitalized for extensive injuries and later discharged. After an investigation, the zoo opened again in January 3, 2008.
If you see a tiger for one second, he has been watching you for an hour. ~Udege Proverb~
There are very few tigers surviving in their natural habitats today. According to the World Wild Life Fund, approximately 3,900 tigers remain in the wild. An additional 5,000 tigers can be found in captivity in the United States, with some living in zoos or wildlife reserves and the rest owned by private citizens.
One of the places where tigers do still roam freely is in the Russian Far East, where a variety of animals eke out an existence in the sub-tropic wilderness: caribou, wolves… tigers.
Temperatures here in the area between the Pacific Ocean and the Chinese borderlands are far below zero as a matter of course. It is a place where both animals and human settlements have learned to co-exist, wary though each side may be.
It is also the place where, in 1997, poacher Vladimir Markov met a grisly end.
Although tigers have no natural enemies, in the world of poaching they have everything to fear.
Virtually all the parts of a tiger are considered valuable in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM): its skin, the penile organ, eyes, teeth, and even whiskers. The diseases said to be cured after the application or ingestion of tiger parts include malaria, skin diseases, serious illnesses like malaria, and also meningitis.
Because of the huge demand coming from China for tiger parts, lucrative business opportunities arose for those willing to resort to poaching. The promise of big money was, and still is, a huge draw to those struggling to make a living and support their families in temperatures which cause saliva to freeze before it can hit the ground. Penalties and fines are steep, but being able to put food in their hungry children’s mouths attracts even those who ordinarily would not consider breaking the law.
Vladimir Markov was one such individual.
One day, while making his way through the frigid woodland on the trail that led home, Markov chanced upon portions of a kill that had been left there recently by an Amur tiger. Acting on impulse — and probably salivating at the thought of fresh meat for both himself and his dog — Markov did the unthinkable: he stole some of the tiger’s kill.
What was worse was that the tiger it had belonged to soon made an appearance. Markov was lucky at first: before the beast could set upon him he summoned his rifle and shot the angry animal. Roaring with pain, the wounded tiger wheeled away from him and dashed back into the frozen forest.
The former bee-keeper must have been elated. He’d been in the forest for far too long and was likely exhausted, shuddering against layers of chill that seeped through his clothing and cracked his freezing skin. Markov didn’t have the best weapons or even the proper clothes that would have shielded him from the frigid temperatures. Bereft of the more comfortable-but-costly footwear that would have protected his toes, Markov was clad only in rubber boots. Likewise, his dog Laika must have been near to skin and bones.
Emboldened by this unexpected victory, Markov continued on his way with a new spring in his step. Eventually the tiger would die from its wounds, and when it did, Markov would claim its body for the sweet rewards that came next.
What he did not count on was the tiger surviving the initial attack by Markov’s bullets.
In a stunningly calculated series of maneuvers, the critically-injured animal nursed her wounds briefly and once again hit the trail. Eager for anything with her attacker’s scent, she beat Markov to his own hut and proceeded to break inside, methodologically destroying all of his meager possessions. She then dragged his mattress outside of the hut and stretched herself out upon it, patiently waiting for Markov to draw near and reveal himself.
She waited in this fashion for twelve to twenty-four full hours.
When Markov did reach the trail end, he did not have a chance to set foot in his home again. Likely before he saw it coming, the injured tiger was upon him. She demolished his dog and then proceeded to demolish the terrified poacher, snatching him into the snow behind the hut and tearing him limb from limb.
By the time she finished her rampage, all that remained of Vladimir Markov for his friends to find was his gnawed-upon head.
For hundreds of years, the Ugeme people who are indigenous to that region of Russia’s Far East have lived in harmony with the caribou, the wolves, and all of the Amur tigers.
After the 1997 attack and killing of Markov, authorities connected with the case got together with the Ugeme people and those affiliated with western-style settlements to ask their opinions on just what, exactly, had happened in their formerly peaceful, ice-laden environment. None of those questioned could recall a single memory in which an Amur tiger had attacked or killed a person there, much less eaten one.
What happened to Markov spoke volumes. Had the poacher not infringed upon his killer’s food cache and mortally wounded its owner — which all agreed had been a serious violation of unspoken rule between man and beast — Markov would have never suffered such an excruciating death.
Therefore, whenever I’m confronted with the question of whether or not the creatures we share the planet with are capable of more cunning than we care to attribute to them, I don’t just think that they are.
I bet on it.
Sources: Wikipedia, ‘The Tiger’, NPR.org, lizcat.com, witness.worldpressphoto.org, themoscowtimes.com, bbc.com, insidescience.org, news18.com
