Montecore, the Roy Horn-mauling white tiger, will remain in his home at the Mirage Hotel, and will not be disciplined for his attack on his trainer. Details at Yahoo.
They keep refering to "The Brave" Roy Horn and his "Courageous Fight" for life. He walked into a room full of hungry muscle, fangs and claws. He got treated like dinner. That not courage. Courage would be walking into that room to save a three year old from certain death. What he did was merely stupid. Entertaining, maybe, but duh. They can eat a buffalo. You think sequins are going to stop them from snacking on your ass?
Playing with large carnivorous cats may be stupid, or a matter of scores of years of training (and I doubt the cats were hungry, as you indicate). I'm not going to argue one way or the other. If Horn is brave or courageous, it is not in the show with the beasts that he shows it, but in his response to being mauled. Courage is not displayed in lack of fear, but in how responds to that fear. The fear here is not a fear of the cats, but a fear of death after being mauled by one. Horn's immediate response was to ask about the cat, to make sure the cat would be treated well. His continued optimism despite his condition also speaks of bravery.
Horn's immediate response was to ask about the cat, to make sure the cat would be treated well.
as much as i disagree with people using and sometimes abusing animals for show or stage purposes, i really do get the sense that the tiger was more than just a 'show cat' to him. he trusted the cat as he would a friend. he knew the tiger didn't mean to hurt him.
Granted, he was (is) concerned for the cat. Bravo. Seriously. I have cats (smaller versions), and I like cats. In fact, I like most animals better then people. Animals don't get snarky, animals don't do drama, etc.
As to holding up in the face of adversity, it wasn't a random attack on the street by a wild tiger, nor some freak accident. It's called an "Occupational Hazzard". I work with paper; paper cuts don't surprise me. Dale Earnhart drove very fast; a serious crash was not a surprise, safety gear failure was. Roy played with tigers; having one injure you should not be a surprise either. He got what was a naturally expected outcome to his course of action, but not "what he deserved", as I've heard said before. I'm really surprised it took as long as it did for it to happen.
Play with fire, get burned. It's inherent in the act. I'm not praising the injuring of another human being, just acknowleging the inevitablilty of it.
the whole point is that the tiger wasn't trying to EAT him. the guy tripped over the cat's foot, the cat got confused and tried to protect roy by dragging him to the cage.
they were talking about it on the news last night, and the only real wounds he has are the puncture wounds on his neck from being carried. if the tiger wanted to eat him, he'd be dead right now.
As for Roy. I am sooooooo sick of people saying he got what he deserved, etc, etc. The man LOVES his animals. Not just because they made him millions, but because he TRULY has affection, respect and admiration for them.
Yes, there are people who own these animals that don't care and who have no expertise in their care or handling. Roy is not one of them.
Yes, in a perfect world ALL these animals would still be living wild and free, but as we all well know....a perfect world does not exist.
Kudos to folks like S&R who DO treat their animals well.
If these animals were "living wild and free", they wouldn't be. They'd be dead, from hunting/poaching and from man's acquisition of their hunting grounds. There are very places that tigers can even live at all, and the smaller big-cats (and the wild small-cats like the Ocelot) are in even more trouble from our encroachment.
The perfect world once existed, 2.5 million years ago...then Homo Ergaster left Africa...and 10,000 years ago the Ice Ages stopped. Everything's different now.
There's "controversy" right now over an effort to recondition tigers to the wild by teaching them to hunt all over again and depositing them on a wildlife sanctuary in South Africa (the controversy being that its an artificial sanctuary, with most of the species including the tigers transplanted). Personally, *anything* that keeps them alive is better than letting them die, or leaving them to be hunted. The caretakers of this effort are well aware that its an experiment, that can hopefully lead to new efforts to do the same in protected lands in Asia, provided they can get the governments of those lands to support the idea and protect it with more guards. The south africa land was easy to get because bad farming practices during the 1920s-1970s ruined it utterly. in fact, they figure its going to be 3-7 more years before the next phase of natural animals, the hyena and vulture scavengers, arrive to complete the circle.
Actually, I do think he got what he deserved... a cat that seriously cares about him, and was concerned when he got hurt. The two of them put a *lot* of care and attention into all of their animals... *personally* (though I believe they also have help, considering the number involved).
The fact that he was injured accidentally by that same cat in the process of it's 'helping' him was a shame, but...
And on top of that... another "deserved" is that people there at the time, as well as any officials who could have a say in the future of the tiger, have recognized the intent of the animal... in part because of the comments/pleas of Siegfried and Roy, and in part because they were *able* to recognize the truth in what they were told. There are people who are supposed to take animals' care to heart out there who *wouldn't* have listened to the reasoning behind the injury.
I am glad to hear this. Everything I've read points to this being a freak accident, and not an attack. Good for Roy for thinking of his cat. I wish him a speedy recovery.
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Nope.
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as much as i disagree with people using and sometimes abusing animals for show or stage purposes, i really do get the sense that the tiger was more than just a 'show cat' to him. he trusted the cat as he would a friend. he knew the tiger didn't mean to hurt him.
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As to holding up in the face of adversity, it wasn't a random attack on the street by a wild tiger, nor some freak accident. It's called an "Occupational Hazzard". I work with paper; paper cuts don't surprise me. Dale Earnhart drove very fast; a serious crash was not a surprise, safety gear failure was. Roy played with tigers; having one injure you should not be a surprise either. He got what was a naturally expected outcome to his course of action, but not "what he deserved", as I've heard said before. I'm really surprised it took as long as it did for it to happen.
Play with fire, get burned. It's inherent in the act. I'm not praising the injuring of another human being, just acknowleging the inevitablilty of it.
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oh, yeah, right...never met *my* cats, have you...
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they were talking about it on the news last night, and the only real wounds he has are the puncture wounds on his neck from being carried. if the tiger wanted to eat him, he'd be dead right now.
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And I hope he recovers well.
EXCELLENT!!
As for Roy. I am sooooooo sick of people saying he got what he deserved, etc, etc. The man LOVES his animals. Not just because they made him millions, but because he TRULY has affection, respect and admiration for them.
Yes, there are people who own these animals that don't care and who have no expertise in their care or handling. Roy is not one of them.
Yes, in a perfect world ALL these animals would still be living wild and free, but as we all well know....a perfect world does not exist.
Kudos to folks like S&R who DO treat their animals well.
Re: EXCELLENT!!
The perfect world once existed, 2.5 million years ago...then Homo Ergaster left Africa...and 10,000 years ago the Ice Ages stopped. Everything's different now.
There's "controversy" right now over an effort to recondition tigers to the wild by teaching them to hunt all over again and depositing them on a wildlife sanctuary in South Africa (the controversy being that its an artificial sanctuary, with most of the species including the tigers transplanted). Personally, *anything* that keeps them alive is better than letting them die, or leaving them to be hunted. The caretakers of this effort are well aware that its an experiment, that can hopefully lead to new efforts to do the same in protected lands in Asia, provided they can get the governments of those lands to support the idea and protect it with more guards. The south africa land was easy to get because bad farming practices during the 1920s-1970s ruined it utterly. in fact, they figure its going to be 3-7 more years before the next phase of natural animals, the hyena and vulture scavengers, arrive to complete the circle.
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The fact that he was injured accidentally by that same cat in the process of it's 'helping' him was a shame, but...
And on top of that... another "deserved" is that people there at the time, as well as any officials who could have a say in the future of the tiger, have recognized the intent of the animal... in part because of the comments/pleas of Siegfried and Roy, and in part because they were *able* to recognize the truth in what they were told. There are people who are supposed to take animals' care to heart out there who *wouldn't* have listened to the reasoning behind the injury.
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