Man killed by his wrestling bear....

[redhen]

Darn..

 

[mamagardener]

I don't think he wrestled the bear, I think he was just the caretaker. At least that is the idea I got from the story. Sad and tragic!

 

[woodmort]

Yeah, it didn't work out too well for the bear, either.

 

[redhen]

And the bear had no clue... he had NO choice to be put in that position...
You take a wild animal and dont expect it to attack someday??
Please...

 

[Whispering Winds]

My brother had an exotic game farm for several years, had Cougars that he NEVER trusted, no matter how docile of a mood they were in when he went in to feed them. He had built federally inspected cages, had permits for every kind of animal he had, and never once did he have an accident. He bred the cougars and sold the cubs before they were even born. . . but he never let anyone get in the cage with him, or took any kind of a chance of escape.

This story is why I am against individuals owning these type of animals. I know, I know its a free country, but these are WILD animals plain and simple. My brother had a black bear and the second she turned ornery she was gone. Too much liability and the owner of these animals evidently is not playing with a full deck. I think the young man that was killed was fulfilling a life long dream of working with exotics and he paid the ultimate price. I feel badly for his parents and family; as they are the ones left to deal with this.

There is another family close to where I live that has exotic animals . . .he actually has LIONS. I did an appraisal on the cute little home next door and had to be honest in my report where they ask if there is any negative issues that might hinder the sale of this home, and I had to tell them about the lions. If I was a home buyer, and had little kids, there is NO way in the world I would even consider moving next door to someone with lions. This is located about a mile as the crow flies out of town and the townspeople can actually hear them roar on occasion . . .now, who would want to take a chance on living next door to a lion owner . . .much as I love every living critter, not me. I am sure he is federally inspected by the gov just like my brother was, BUT if you saw the condition of his home and yard and pastures where some of his animals are housed, you would be inclined to look somewhere else to live, because it looks unsupervised and not very stable.

Another incident that happened in St. Louis years ago, and some of the BYCER'S on here might remember the man that was laying on the bed with his BIG snake and it killed him. He loved it so much, he played with it on his bed and that snake didn't care . . .that was dinner and he was gonna have some!!! St. Louis Zoo got the snake and it was a HUGE Boa if I remember right . . .I could go on and on. Several tragic stories about kids being killed by a snake in the home that escaped from its cage and while it was an accident, it also makes great meat for these kind of discussions. . .

If you want animals like these, and the law says you can, then by all means, have them. BUT be responsible and careful and never ever ever forget they are WILD. Personally, I have issues with zoo's having some of these animals housed and caged, much less an individual.

 

[RachelFromTheBlackLagoon]

It should be illegal everywhere. Whether or not there's a human fatality, there's almost always tragedy in the way these animals are housed and cared for. How can you take a wild animal that naturally roams over hundreds of miles, lock it in a glorified dog kennel, strip it of every natural behavior it has evolved to exhibit for hundreds of thousands of years and claim that it's proper or safe? And then it's killed when it does exhibit natural behavior or lash out from abuse, mistreatment, frustration, etc. I can't understand for the life of me how it's legal to "own" these animals or how some of these facilities are even approved. People are greedy and selfish and feel like they need to dominate things more powerful than they are. And I think some people only keep these animals because "this is America and it's their RIGHT!" But it's always at the expense of these animals, and it's DISGUSTING.

 

[redhen]

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