zoo – Pain In The Bud

UK Man ‘Bowed Down’ To Tiger While Livestreaming Own Death: Police

The visitor’s strange behavior and the crowd’s panicked screams began to override the tiger’s initial confused curiosity, prompting his predatory instincts to kick in.

A British man killed this weekend by a zoo tiger was mentally “vulnerable” and behaved bizarrely before and during his grisly encounter, police and witnesses said.

William Chapman, described in media reports as “in his early 20s,” was seen laughing and dancing before he hopped the barriers separating guests at Yorkshire Wildlife Park from its Land of the Tigers exhibit.

Chapman suffered from “significant mental illness,” his family wrote in a statement.

In audio captured a few minutes before Chapman’s 1:30 pm death on Oct. 10, the late Briton handed his smartphone to another visitor and asked the woman to take photos of him with the tiger in the background.

“Thank you, lady,” he’s heard saying on the recording before he climbed the barriers in front of horrified guests and dropped into the enclosure housing Altai, an Amur tiger who just turned five years old about two weeks ago.

A close-up of a tiger resting on the grass, showcasing its distinctive orange and black stripes, with a focused gaze. — Altai. Credit: Yorkshire Wildlife Park

The encounter took an even stranger turn from there as Chapman, who was live-streaming to Instagram, seemed to welcome Altai. The curious big cat hopped down from a wooden platform where he’d been soaking up the sun and padded unhurriedly toward Chapman, who spread his arms theatrically.

“It looked like a performance,” bystander Anthony Hunt said. “He got down where everyone could see him in the main viewing area. He was on all fours, praying and bowing down to the tiger. It was like he was waiting for the tiger.”

Still images show Altai standing in a confused, non-aggressive posture, with telltale “helicopter ears” indicating curiosity and hesitation about how to respond.

Chapman’s behavior didn’t fit Altai’s cognitive script.

The tiger’s hardwired instincts told him incursions from other members of his species are threats. His experiences in captivity told him humans are caretakers who show up at predictable times as part of a daily routine to feed him, repair his enclosure or introduce enrichment items. This was something entirely new.

A person kneels on grass while interacting with a large tiger in a natural setting. — A still from footage recorded by a witness to Saturday afternoon’s fatal encounter.

While I’ve learned my lesson when it comes to watching video of things I can’t unsee and have no desire to watch footage of a man’s life ending in a violent mauling, I did watch short clips of the preceding moments. They were compiled from recordings by bystanders and Chapman’s own feed.

The moment the situation changed was unambiguous, and you can see exactly when Altai became overstimulated and his predatory drive kicked in: Chapman dropped to all fours, reducing his physical profile until he resembled prey, and the panicked screams from the crowd of onlookers pushed Altai into overstimulation and hypervigilance.

He knew the encounter had taken a turn, and that’s when he took his first few exploratory swipes, still pulling his punches as he tried to figure out what was happening.

Chapman responded by assuming a defensive posture, raising a finger to the big cat while shouting “No! No!” and chiding him for being “naughty.” To the tiger, Chapman confirmed he was prey.

At the same time the screams from above grew louder. Altai’s predatory instincts were fully engaged, and according to reports that’s when he mauled Chapman and delivered a kill bite to the UK man’s neck.

A young man with short hair and earbuds stands in front of a panoramic landscape featuring rolling hills and lush greenery. — Chapman’s family said he was taking “strong medication” to help manage mental health issues.

Zookeepers who rushed to the scene fired warning shots, sending Altai scurrying for the safety of his den. A medical airlift helicopter arrived a few minutes later, but by then it was too late. Chapman had bled out and was pronounced dead at the scene.

Authorities erected screens to conceal the carnage as staff closed the zoo. Footage of guests leaving showed bystanders in shock, discussing what they’d just witnessed as they shuffled through the exit.

One woman, a mother who tried to stop Chapman from leaping, was particularly disturbed. She did not speak to reporters.

Chapman “looked like he was taking selfies” after dropping into the habitat, 21-year-old Scarlet Hogan told The Telegraph.

“Up until he got attacked, it was like he was in a trance, not in reality at all,” Hogan said.

“He had arms wide open ready for the tiger to attack him. It was quite bad. We were just stood there, frozen… the last thing we saw was the tiger’s jaw on his neck.”

Altai pictured in promotional material for the park.

Chapman, who had traveled from nearby Doncaster to the zoo, was an actor who had roles in productions by the BBC and ITV.

“The man who I saw on the bridge with his AirPods in, dancing, was happily enjoying seeing the tiger,” witness Marie Miller said.

Park staff said Altai, whose subspecies is critically endangered, will not be euthanized, and witnesses who spoke to the BBC said staff promptly took control and shut the park down.

Neither the zoo nor the tiger were at fault, said the University of Reading’s Campbell Murn, a former member of the UK government’s Zoo Experts Committee.

“I view it in the same way a determined thief will get into somebody’s house or somebody’s car,” Murn said, “and despite the best security systems and enclosures sometimes these things happen.”

‘We Have To Do A Better Job Of Making Sure People Understand These Are Not Disney Animals’: Your Latest Reminder That Tigers Aren’t Cuddly

Wild animals, particularly wild predators, cannot be befriended, and encounters with them rarely end well for people.

David Villalobos told detectives he wanted to be “one with the tiger.”

So the New York man jumped off the monorail at the Bronx Zoo and into the Wild Asia exhibit, where his 10-minute encounter with a tiger named Bashuta resulted in a punctured lung, a broken arm, and bite wounds on his arms, legs, shoulders and back.

Mercifully, and contrary to his nature as a predator, Bashuta did not kill Villalobos, and while Villalobos almost got his wish “to be one with” the male Siberian tiger, his consolation prize was life – and a trespassing charge from the NYPD.

I remember the 2012 incident well because I was working as a reporter for Newsday at the time and I was in the newsroom the night it happened, placing calls to Villalobos’ family and neighbors in an attempt to understand why he’d willingly enter an apex predator’s enclosure.

On Saturday a UK man — whose name has not been publicly released yet by authorities — jumped into the tiger enclosure at the UK’s Yorkshire Wildlife Park. He wasn’t as lucky, and zoo visitors filmed the last few moments of his life as the big cat — also an endangered Siberian (Amur) — mauled him.

A still image of a video that shows the last few moments of the UK man’s life after he hopped barriers to enter a tiger habitat at Yorkshire Wildlife Park on Oct. 10.

Like the incident at the Bronx Zoo, the enclosure at Yorkshire Wildlife Park had adequate barriers and the man circumvented several of them to put himself in danger.

The big cat was unharmed and will not be euthanized. The incident “was in no way the tiger’s fault,” said Ron Magill, a wildlife photographer and communications director for Zoo Miami.

“It’s just so hard to guarantee against someone who’s determined to do something,” Magill told CNN in an interview a few hours after the incident.

The wildlife park was evacuated and remained closed for the weekend. In the meantime, UK authorities asked people not to continue sharing footage uploaded by several bystanders.

“I say this with profound respect for my profession, but we have to do a better job of making people understand these are not Disney animals,” Magill said. “This is not a play exhibit. We do not play with these animals. They are not our pets. And they can be much more dangerous because they have lost that natural fear of people. “

They’re also territorial, and from their perspective their enclosures are their territories. Zoo visitors who drop in are curiosities to explore by pawing at them at best, and uninvited, unwanted invaders at worst.

Tigers are the largest and most dangerous big cats, and Amur (Siberian) tigers are the biggest tiger subspecies in the world. Credit: Lars H Knudsen/Pexels

It’s a lesson quite a few people need to learn, apparently. US national park rangers have been begging people to keep their distance from wild animals over the past few years after several incidents involving tourists approaching dangerous wildlife to pet them, take selfies with them, and generally infringe on their space.

In July, 65-year-old Carl Isom-McDaniel was photographing a bison with his granddaughter when the 2,000 pound animal charged at him and launched him high into the air, using its horns in a display of raw power serving as a reminder that humans are physically nowhere near the top of the food chain.

Isom-McDaniel’s incident, in which he suffered multiple femur fractures among other injuries, happened less than two weeks after a 12-year-old was attacked and hospitalized after getting too close to a bison near Yellowstone’s “mud volcano.”

At the time, park officials noted bison have been involved in more attacks on visitors than any other species in the park.

“They are unpredictable, can run three times faster than humans and will defend their space when threatened,” a statement from the US National Park Service read.

Although it may seem obvious that mixing with predators or even large herbivores is a bad idea, Magill said some people still have the impression they can somehow make friends with wild animals.

That misconception may be compounded by the ubiquity of social media posts showing tourists in Asian wildlife parks, where tigers are often heavily sedated so guests can enter their enclosures to touch them and pose for selfies with them. It is a form of animal abuse by every definition, but some people don’t want to hear that.

“We see this over and over again, people who try to get close to animals, cuddle the animals, thinking … that this is their pet,” Magill said. “That’s not the case. These animals should not be approached.”

Wordless Wednesday: Lion Around

“I say, dear fellow, would you have any Grey Poupon? This roast is rather dry, and the zookeepers do not take me seriously when I tell them human will be on the menu if they don’t shape up!”

This photo of a chatty lion was taken at Lo Zoo di Napoli (Naples Zoo) in Italy by BoBB, aka Brother of Big Buddy:

For a brief moment, since it is April 1, I considered writing a post about how the Somalian pirates who briefly “bought” Buddy a few years ago returned with an offer I couldn’t refuse, so I sent the little dude packing for the pirate life once again.

But then I remembered the emails I got, including one from a woman who said she was heartbroken by my betrayal of the Budster.

So no April Fools’ Day, because as fun as it is to imagine Bud joining a pirate crew, I can’t have some people thinking I’d abandon him. He’s here to stay!

Zoo Visitors Shocked To See Tabby Cat Napping With Lions, Jaguars And Tigers

Zoologists were at a loss to explain how the tabby cat moved effortlessly among the big cats without becoming a light snack.

NEW YORK — Zoo visitors and keepers alike were flabbergasted at the sight of a small gray tabby cat lounging in several big cat enclosures on Monday.

Zoologists and a security team were called to the tiger exhibit at 11:45 am when guests reported the domestic cat had somehow entered the enclosure and had settled down between two adult Bengal tigers for a nap.

“It almost looked like the little cat was demonstrating his form for the tigers,” said Al Farelli, who brought his two girls to the zoo Monday and witnessed the strange event. “Both tigers copied the small cat’s posture and then they all dozed off.”

Buddy the Cat enjoying a late morning nap with tigers Zeus, left, and Achilles, right.

Zookeepers, initially fearing for the tiny cat’s safety, were conferring and were trying to coax the domestic feline toward a keeper entrance when the little cat lifted his head and hissed. Zeus, taking notice, followed the smaller cat’s lead and growled at the keepers.

“Never seen anything like it, and I’ve been working with predators for more than 20 years,” said Wendy Johnson, a senior zookeeper.

Zoo staff breathed a sigh of relief when the feline left the enclosure about an hour later, but were incredulous when they received guest reports that the cat had popped up again in Jaguar Jungle.

“We’re just standing there and admiring these majestic big cats when a gray kitty comes padding into the enclosure with his tail up, as if he didn’t have a care in the world,” said Melissa Matthews, a Manhattanite who was at the park with friends.

“Then when the jaguars saw him I gasped because I thought he was about to become an hors d’oeuvre for one of them,” she said, shuddering. “But they chuffed happily, exchanged paw bumps with the little guy and groomed him.”

Once again, the tabby cat settled down for a nap, laying on top of a jaguar named Ixchel.

Buddy finally made his way to the lion exhibit by late afternoon, settling down to nap with a lion named Colossus.

Meanwhile a New York man arrived at the zoo, explaining he’d seen clips of the bizarre scene on social media and recognized the feline as his cat, Buddy.

“He’s always doing this!” the man told zoo staff. “There was the time leopards almost ate him on the Masi Mara, the incident in the Amazon when he took ayahuasca with jaguar shamans, and the debacle when he tried to make himself king of the rusty spotted cats.”

As of late Monday the man was seen arguing with the silver tabby and trying to bribe him out of the enclosure with an impressive snack spread.

This Is The Zoo Of My Dreams!

Have you ever wanted to own or design your own zoo?

Visitors to Buddy’s Tropical Paradise are greeted by friendly staff who man the entrance, a broad vertical garden shaped like an arch that straddles the main path leading inside.

When they walk through the gate a new vista opens up before them: tiered tropical gardens, waterfalls, and wide boulevards lined with palm trees and flowers. They hear the rumble of big cats calling to each other in the distance and monkeys shrieking as they fling themselves from branch to branch.

A monorail carries passengers above, its tracks looping over animal enclosures and threading tunnels that emerge amid the terraced jungle, eateries and souvenir shops.

And straight ahead, the first exhibit: a sprawling habitat occupied by jaguars who are enjoying some yums and will probably have a nap in a few minutes.

Buddy’s Tropical Paradise doesn’t exist in the real world, of course. It’s my first attempt at fully functional, guest-attracting park in Planet Zoo, a simulator that allows you to do practically anything you can think of.

You can design your own habitats, enclosures, buildings and scenery. Fancy a monorail that laps the entire zoo? You can do that. Picturing a 1940s style Tarzan-themed jungle boat ride where visitors can see caiman, capuchin monkeys and jaguars up close? Start carving up the river, my friend!

Bengal Tiger — A Bengal tiger stalking the tall grass in Planet Zoo.

Jaguars — Lunch time in the jaguar habitat, followed by the all-important nap time.

As the zoo’s architect, you’re responsible for everything. You’ll need veterinary facilities, animal quarantine, keeper huts. You’ll need to staff your park with veterinarians, keepers, security officers, maintenance staff and mechanics.

And don’t forget the vendors to run the souvenir shops and man the food stalls, where your guests can grab hot dogs or cool off with slushies on a hot day.

A suitable home for your animals

Designing a habitat is about a lot more than reserving space for your animals. You’re tasked with picking the right barriers, mindful of which species can climb or leap great heights. A good habitat should reflect the animal’s home in the wild with appropriate flora, temperatures the species thrives in and a feeding system that mimics the way they’d naturally obtain food.

Elephant shower — Elephants cool off in their enclosure in Planet Zoo. Every habitat must be designed with the right atmosphere, flora, terrain, shelter and enrichment appropriate for the species it houses.

Orangutan habitat — A wide view of my orangutan habitat. Two orangutans are at the base of the stone steps in the distance.

Then there’s enrichment. Trees for your monkeys to climb, ponds for your tigers to take a dip, bushes for your elephants to strip. Different species enjoy different toys and challenges. An ice block with meat in the middle would hit the spot for carnivores on a hot summer day, but your pandas will want bamboo.

Designing habitats and getting them just right is not only fun, it’s an intuitive way to learn about the needs of individual species and how they live.

The leopard learning incident

My first stab at building a leopard enclosure was a disaster. It looked pretty enough with its Hindu-inspired temple architecture and pond. There were plenty of scratching posts and trees that could withstand claws.

I installed a sprinkler to help the big cats cool off, designed a series of raised platforms for them to climb, and scattered enrichment items all over the habitat. The leopards had balls to bat around, boxes to sit in, rubbing pads, logs and rocks to climb, and plenty of cover and shade.

But when I had the leopards brought into the zoo, through quarantine and into their exhibit, I realized you can’t just design a home for animals from an aesthetic perspective. I’d used several plant and tree species that weren’t native to leopard habitats, the terrain was wrong and I hadn’t paid any mind to ambient temperature.

Making those mistakes was truly educational. When your animals aren’t happy in Planet Zoo, protesters show up, and it’s up to you to read the alerts about where you went wrong and how to remedy your mistakes. It’s an intuitive and fun way to learn about each species and the environments they thrive in.

The escaped jaguar

I’m still learning the ropes, although I do have a basic knowledge of the way the game is designed thanks to some time playing Frontier’s theme park building game, Planet Coaster. The first time I tried to build a jaguar enclosure, I forgot to wall off a viewing cave with protective glass, which my guests did not appreciate.

Even though jaguars don’t like to confront humans, a big cat is a big cat, and the game sent me urgent warnings as people ran for the exits. When I found the escaped jag, he was lounging not far from his enclosure, watching people freak out.

Elephant and ball — Enrichment is a key aspect of habitat design. Toys, puzzles, obstacles, climbing platforms for arboreal species, ponds for animals who like to get wet — they’re all necessary to keep animals healthy and happy.

In real life it’d be a disaster, but I was able to revert to a previous save, make sure the viewing cave was sufficiently protected, and this time around I placed only two jaguars — a male and a female — in the large enclosure.

After a while, while I was tinkering with an exhibit meant for capuchin monkeys, the game sent me an alert: the female jaguar was pregnant! She gave birth to two energetic, curious cubs who are currently having fun chasing each other around the enclosure and going for dips in their pond.

Night view — Part of the main boulevard in Buddy’s Tropical Paradise, viewed at night. Players are responsible for everything you see here — lighting, shops, flowers and plants, benches, waste baskets and more.

Asian section — Shops and a monorail station in an unfinished Asia-themed area of the zoo.

As in real life, the game has you source animals from an international pool, with information on breeding and genetics so you can contribute to conservation. When you adopt animals, their first stop is the veterinary facilities for examination, then quarantine. When they pass quarantine, you can have your staff release them into their enclosures.

It took me several hours to familiarize myself with the basics, design an entrance and a main boulevard for the guests, create some tiered gardens with eateries and shops, and get my jaguar and orangutan exhibits up and running.

My monorail currently runs out of track a quarter of the way through the park, and my river boat ride looks pretty cool, with dense jungle, towering trees and the ruins of Mayan temples not far from shore, but completing it will require appropriate barriers to keep the animals in as well as building out more scenery.

Jaguar habitat — A jaguar in her habitat.

I’ve got my sights set on an elephant exhibit next. It will be necessarily huge, so it’s good to reserve the land early and plan smaller exhibits and facilities around it. I’d also like to put the elephants, lions, zebra, giraffes etc into one Africa-themed section of the park, while the tigers, giant pandas and snow monkeys will be housed in an Asia-themed section, with buildings that reflect the architectural styles of countries like Japan and China.

There are also aquatic exhibits, animals for your own reptile house and aviaries. Those enclosures are more complex than the relatively straightforward orangutan exhibit, for example, so I’ll have to spend some time figuring out what makes a good home for peacocks, sharks and komodo dragons.

So far I’ve resisted the temptation to make one giant felid park, with snow leopards, pumas and cheetahs joining the tigers, lions, jaguars and others. Of course I did name it Buddy’s Tropical Paradise, so I may be forced down the all-cat road if Bud gets his say.

Planet Zoo is not a traditional video game. There are no winners or losers, and there’s no “end state” unless you intentionally include one.

It’s more relaxing and much slower-paced than your typical game, and it’s a great feeling when you’ve managed to take something from your imagination and perfect the design. When you want to check your progress or just admire your own work, you can set the camera to follow guests and watch as people stroll through your zoo, taking in the sights and sounds.

In that sense it’s more like a virtual model train set or living diorama. You can load up the game and tinker with your zoo when you’ve got a spare 15 minutes, or spend a few hours getting absorbed in the finer details of how to keep pangolin and red pandas happy.

Planet Zoo is appropriate for all ages, although its depth and complexity would probably be a lot for younger kids. In that case, it’s probably best to have an adult guide them so they understand the game is built on interlocking systems: exhibits need power and water, shops need staff, veterinary surgeries need veterinarians and so on.

It’ll have enormous appeal to kids who enjoy Lego, Minecraft and other building games, so if you’ve got a little builder in your life, this could be a good fit. But make no mistake, there’s a lot here for adults to enjoy too.

PITB verdict: Four out of five paws!

The only thing keeping Planet Zoo back from a five-paw rating is the DLC (downloadable content) scheme, which requires users to pay extra for certain “packs” containing extra animals, scenery pieces and scenarios. That’s a problem plaguing the larger video game industry, but if you wait for a sale, the normally $44.95 game can be had for as low as $11.24 on Steam. DLC is likewise discounted. Steam’s summer sale is a great opportunity to get games like this for a fraction of their normal price. This year’s summer sale is scheduled for June 27, though it’s possible Planet Zoo could be put on sale before then as well.