Lions and Tigers in Vegas, Oh My...

 

Siegfried and Roy with a white lion

Photo: Wikipedia

It was on this day ten years ago that the final performance of famed duo Siegfried & Roy was staged at the Mirage Resort and Casino in Las Vegas, NV.  Under most circumstances this would have been a grand finale to a long-standing show, planned months in advance and full of the sweet melancholy of closure.

Not so with this 35-year-running, iconic show.  Siegfried & Roy, the self-proclaimed "Masters of the Impossible", performed a high stakes magic show that featured live big cats appearing and vanishing from the stage.  Their performance was particularly famous for the use of white tigers and lions.  According to all reports the animals were treated with the utmost care, and Roy himself raised the all of the tiger cubs by hand, training them through what he called "affection conditioning".  There was no abuse or mistreatment involved in the cats' care, which made this final performance all the more shocking:

Forty-five minutes into the show, at about 8:15 p.m., Roy led out Montecore, a seven-year-old white tiger born in Guadalajara, Mexico. The 380-pound cat became distracted by someone in the 1,500- member crowd and broke his routine, straying toward the edge of the stage. With no barrier protecting the audience, Roy leapt to put himself between Montecore and the front row, only a few feet away. The tiger kept coming. Roy gave him a command to lie down, and Montecore refused, gripping the trainer’s right wrist with his paw.

“He lost the chain [around the tiger's neck] and grabbed for it, but couldn’t get it,” says Tony Cohen, a Miami tourist who was sitting ten yards from the stage. With his free hand holding a wireless microphone, Roy tried repeatedly tapping Montecore on the head, the sound reverberating through the theater. “Release!” Roy commanded the tiger. “Release!”

Montecore relaxed his grip, but Roy had been straining to pull away, and fell backward over the tiger’s leg. In an instant, Montecore was on top of him, clamping his powerful jaws around Roy’s neck. Now Siegfried, standing nearby, ran across the stage yelling, “No, no, no!” But the tiger was resolute, and dragged his master 30 feet offstage “literally like a rag doll,” as another witness recalls.  (http://www.rd.com/true-stories/survival/siegfried-and-roy-tiger-attack/)

The horrifying incident left Roy in critical condition.  Montecore was placed in quarantine, and the show was cancelled indefinitely.  Although Roy survived, the effects of the injury to his nervous system prevented him from ever returning to show business, and the duo retired from the industry.

The lingering question for animal behaviorists is what prompted Montecore to attack the man who had raised him:

Siegfried would later say that Roy had fallen ill from the effects of blood pressure pills; Montecore, he insisted, realized something was wrong and was only trying to protect Roy. But animal behaviorists put little stock into that notion. They say it’s more likely that Montecore was on his way to delivering a killing bite, much as a tiger in the wild would bring down an antelope.

 Big cats, like most carnivores, have instinctual responses to certain stimuli.  It's possible the Roy's sensory output triggered Montecore to react as he would to a wounded prey animal.  Alternatively, the tiger may have perceived Roy's distress after falling and responded as a tiger would to another tiger--by attempting to lift him by the neck.  This response would do no harm to a tiger but is clearly fatal to a human.

This incident was an immediate talking point for animal rights activists, who argued that the incident showed that performing big cats will lash out against those who keep them in captivity.  This view seems unfounded, as the investigation by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) showed that the animals were well cared for (http://www.today.com/id/8391183/ns/today-today_entertainment/t/why-did-tiger-attack-roy-horn/#.Uk3pFG3CZ98).  The only issue in the report was that the show presented undue danger to the audience without proper barriers.

Big cats in shows continues to be an issue of contention.  Beyond the many cats still retained in private circuses and sideshows (many in far worse conditions than Siegfried & Roy's), many zoos continue to use live shows as a public attraction, justifying them as a form of animal enrichment.  The Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) has put strict controls on the exposure of animal care staff to big cats, allowing only "protected contact" and only minimal "free contact" when necessary.  Protected contact keeps staff safe from incidents like the one in Vegas, but it limits the degree to which staff can interact with cats and enrich their lives through operant conditioning.  Is it better to maintain the safety of separation, or is it worth the risk to be able to provide cats with more enriched lives?

Onward to San Diego - Days 2 & 3

I spent Tuesday travelling around Bartlesville, Oklahoma, with my aunt.  The has been sustained by money from oil and was the original headquarters of Phillips 66.  Consequently the town is characterized by an mix of rural farmland, small town U.S.A., modern suburb, and major city center, all with a population of only 35,000.  The architecture is eclectic;  on a walk in my aunt and uncle's neighborhood, we houses in Romanesque, Gothic, Tudor, colonial, and Spanish styles all within a one block span.

The most famous building in town is Price Tower, one of the only skyscrapers designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.  It was originally designed for the New York skyline, so it has been nicknamed "the tree that escaped the forest".  Price Tower has hotel rooms in its upper floors, making it the only Frank Lloyd Wright building in which you can spend the night.

Price Tower is designed to remind the viewer of a tree.

On Wednesday I left early, since I had a 10.5 hour drive ahead to get to Cedar Crest, New Mexico.  Although the Texas panhandle has arbitrary longitudinal borders to the east and west, I was surprised how much those borders affected the topography and climate.  Although it had been overcast throughout my entire drive in Oklahoma, the moment I crossed into Texas the sun came out for the first time.  At the other end of the panhandle, the border lines up with an unusual geological feature.  Most of the Texas panhandle sits atop the Llano Estacado, one of the largest plateaus in North America.  Just fifteen miles from the border with New Mexico the plateau gives way to the Canadian River valley and the hilly scrubland that characterizes most of New Mexico.  Driving over the edge of the plateau is quite a spectacle:

 It's a good clue that you've reached New Mexico when the welcome center is built of adobe.

Onward to San Diego - Day 1

I should have anticipated when I started this blog how difficult it can be to motivate oneself to write while keeping up a college schedule.  The semester is over now, and I should try at least to bring everything up to date and elaborate later.

My career in the zoo world in brief:

• Summer 2007 - started volunteering as a junior docent in the children's area of the Jackson Zoo
• Summer 2009 - discovered Rhodes College across the street from the Memphis Zoo
• Summer 2010 - graduated from high school and finished my work at the Jackson Zoo before heading to Memphis for college
• Fall 2010 - received my first position at the Memphis Zoo in the research barn preparing snow leopard samples for hormone analysis
• Summer 2011 - held a brief internship at the Jackson Zoo during which I shadowed the vet tech and keepers and worked with nearly every species in the zoo
• Fall 2011 - began research with my advisor taking behavioral data on elephants at the Memphis Zoo
• Summer 2012 - held a research fellowship under my advisor to continue the elephant project taking data from video recordings
• Fall 2012 - began a second project taking data on the Memphis Zoo hippos while continuing elephant data
• Spring 2013 - applied for and received a summer research fellowship with San Diego Zoo Global

That pretty much brings me up to the present.  That list only tells part of the story, and I hope to fill in the gaps in future posts.  Currently I am on my way to San Diego for my fellowship and have completed the first leg of my trip.  I'm visited my aunt and uncle in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, and we plan to see some of the local sights tomorrow.  It's already been a very surprising city.  For a town of only 30,000, it has a downtown that could rival a much larger city:

Photo: city-data.com

In the beginning...

God created the heavens and the earth.  This statement is among the most eloquent sentences ever used to begin a written work, but it is an especially fitting beginning for this blog.

I have often been encouraged to create a blog that allows others to glimpse my experiences as I plunge further into the world of zoos through my education and career.  I have been loathe to do so in the past because I felt (as I still partially do) that zoo work is not nearly so interesting as people might be inclined to think, and many of the most interesting things I have experienced have occurred "behind the scenes", an area about which many zoos prohibit online discussion.  Nonetheless, looking back on my progress so far, I realize how little I can remember, and I see the value, even if only for myself, of keeping some record of my experiences and thoughts over time.

So, how is Genesis 1:1 an apt preface to an online record of my career in zoos?  Simply because I believe the statement to be true, and that belief motivates all of my interactions with animals, zoos, and the natural world.  I believe that humans are tenants on rented land, and that dominion over the earth does not mean subjugation but rather responsibility.  I believe that we are called to be responsible stewards of the natural world over which we have been appointed, and that the extinction of a species constitutes a permanent loss to the diversity of creation,  From such a perspective, the role of zoos seems clear:  Zoos foster responsible treatment of other species by displaying the diversity of life, promoting methods of species conservation, and setting a positive example of responsible animal husbandry.

I will be more specific as to the details of my journey into the zoo in future, but I feel that it is important, both for myself and others, to lay down the one belief that fuels it all.  I hope my readers will find things to interest, amaze, or provoke deep thoughts on this exploration into my increasingly zoo-themed life.