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OAKLAND — A man’s decision last weekend to climb a guard railing at the Oakland Zoo has brought more personnel to the tiger pit where it happened, and reminders of just how dangerous such a decision can be.
A zoo visitor caught the incident on videotape.
The man wasn’t injured and appeared to change his mind after climbing over the 42-inch safety railing that separates the tigers from the public. A chain-link fence also stands between the tigers den and the guard railing.
The video shows the man scaling the railing, reportedly to retrieve his sunglasses. A tiger sees him and gets up and walks toward the chain-link fence and peers up. The camera than moves back to the man, who apparently changed his mind and climbed back over the safety railing.
“The chain-link fence keeps the tiger in. But then sometimes they think they can pet the tiger, in which case the fingers go through the mesh and that’s when it can get dangerous to the public,” zoo CEO and President Joel Parrott told ABC7, this news organization’s media partner.
The zoo has added additional personnel to the tiger pit, according to the station. No additional safety signs will be put up.
“You cannot design for irresponsible and stupid behavior,” Parrott told the station.
The scare came a couple months shy of the 11-year anniversary of a fatal tiger attack at the San Francisco Zoo. On Christmas Day 2007, a visitor to the San Francisco Zoo was killed and two of his friends were injured after a Siberian tiger leaped out of its outdoor closure and mauled them.
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