Shot tiger 'had a heart of gold'
A movie actor who once played Tarzan hit out at police for killing a tiger that escaped from his home, saying the animal had a “heart of gold”.
The six-year-old tiger was shot dead when it lunged at a wildlife officer who was trying to capture it in the Florida town of Loxahatchee.
Steve Sipek, who developed a soft spot for jungle beasts after playing Tarzan in B-movies decades ago, said he doubted the tiger had to be killed.
He said he would have been able to coax the tiger, named Bobo, if officers had called him to the scene before shooting it.
“Murder is the word,” Sipek said. “They murdered a poor helpless animal that only looked ferocious, as any tiger would, but Bobo had a heart of gold.”
A dozen wildlife trackers and sheriff’s deputies had searched more than 24 hours for the animal, which escaped on Monday. They found it in a five-acre area of dense slash pines and palm trees.
Officers approached the tiger intending to shoot it with tranquillisers. But the tiger jumped at one officer, who shot it with a shotgun in self-defence, said Jorge Pino, a spokesman with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
“Needless to say, the owner is very distraught. We’re distraught,” Pino said. “Our concern was to recover this tiger alive and well.”
Wildlife officials had said they did not believe the declawed pet would attack. He was never taught to hunt, and had never killed anything or lived in the wild. However, he did bite a woman working inside his cage two years ago, severely injuring her.
An expert on tiger behaviour disagreed that Bobo had posed no danger.
“Tigers are wild animals and they retain hard-wired instincts and to say just because a tiger doesn’t have his claws – so what? He still has his teeth and they’re powerful,” said Ron Tilson, conservation director at the Minnesota Zoo.
Sipek’s compound is about 10 miles from West Palm Beach, just off a main east-west highway. Sipek has another tiger, a panther, a cougar and lions on his five-acre compound, which is marked by a sign that reads: “Trespassers will be eaten.”
