Roy of Siegfried and Roy critical after mauling

[Ladyzekke]

http://www.cnn.com/2003/SHOWBIZ/10/0...ked/index.html

I hope Roy pulls through, but I cannot help but not be surprised at this sort of thing. I'm not much of a fan of circuses myself using wild animals in such a fashion. I look at these animals as slaves for human entertainment, and I cannot blame any of them for cracking and lashing out at their "masters." They are wild animals after all. Not to mention Siegfried and Roy have been called down more than once in the past for mistreating their animals to get them to perform.

[Jorath Calar]

Well... you F*** with a tiger you get bit.

Hope he makes it though

[johnny]

I just hope one thing... that they don't kill the tiger for this. I don't give a crap about that guy, he wanted to play with wild animals, and he got what was coming to him. It's as simple as that. Just don't punish the tiger for this.

[Dreamer128]

I dunno. I guess these 'circus animals' have better lives then the thousands of farm animals who spend their intire lives in a very small space with others of their kind. That is just plain sick.

[Indemaijinj]

I am OK with circus animals like horses, dogs, elephants, sealions etc. All the animals who actually enjoy doing performing and can be learned to put trust in their human trainers.

But no tigers or bears. They are not domesticable and their is no way they can be made to accept or like their treatment.

[Timber Loftis]

Well, the cynic in me wants to point out that Siegfried and Roy have no business messing with things they nothing about -- i.e. pussies.

However, this is sad for Roy. I, too, am generally against animal abuse/mistreatment, and it is sad to know they've been taken to task for this before.

I struggle with this. For instance, I like that zoos are instructive and can show people/children the wonders of nature. I especially like the recent trend in zoos for them to show "habitats/ecologies" -- i.e. all the animals in an ecosystem functioning together -- rather than just "here are the lions in this cage, here are the polar bears in this cage." However, I still feel for the animals.

However, with habitat being destroyed so quickly by the monster of industrialization, slouching ever so onward toward Bethlehem, are the animals better off OUT of zoos/shows/carnies than they are IN them? [img]graemlins/1ponder.gif[/img]

[Cerek the Barbaric]

From what I understand, S&R breed and raise their own tigers. I could be wrong, but it seems like I read that somewhere a few years ago. So the animals they work with have been raised in captivity and were never truly "wild" to begin with. Still, you can't erase their genetic code and I have to admit it's surprising something like this has happened before.

As for destroying the tiger, I haven't heard any mention of that on any of the reports I saw. Again, this is a tiger that S&R have raised from a cub (it's around 7 yrs old IIRC), so I assume the decision would lie with them. They have a large complex where they keep all their animals. If Roy does recover enough for them to continue their act, I would expect they would simply leave this tiger out of their show from now on.

One other thing I didn't realize is that Roy was 59 yrs old. I knew they had been around for a long time, but I didn't know they were that old.

[Donut]

Horn told the tiger to lie down. When it refused, Horn tapped it on the nose with a microphone to get its attention

Well he certainly got the tiger's attention!

[Cloudbringer]

I don't care for tigers, bears and such in 'shows', either. There's just something about watching some guy force a big cat to jump through a flaming hoop or perform silly tricks etc that rubs me the wrong way.

I really think you can't take the 'wild' out of them that easily...just showing them how to get a free treat (which is how they train the animals) isn't going to take away the animal's natural instincts and agression. I too was surprised this hasn't happened earlier. But I certainly hope the poor guy recovers, that's a pretty nasty way to be wounded!

Johnny, I agree, I hope they don't take this out on the tiger. It did something tigers tend to do- got agressive with someone who rapped it first.

[Cloudbringer]

Originally posted by Timber Loftis: Well, the cynic in me wants to point out that Siegfried and Roy have no business messing with things they nothing about -- i.e. pussies.

ROTFL! [img]graemlins/kittynow.gif[/img] MEOW! LOL Couldn't leave that one untouched! LOLOLOL [img]graemlins/laugh3.gif[/img]