To think they shouldn't have put the tigers together?

[girlfriend44]

Did anyone see the Safari Park Programme on Channel 4 on Thursday evening. It's a series.
They tried to mate an 8 year old Tiger with a 14 year old female tiger?

After a lot of fighting they went out of view, and the male tiger fatally injured the female.

It turns out, he'd done this before with other tigers, she clearly didn't want to mate.
A mating experience gone badly wrong because the park put them together?
So sad did anyone else see it?
Will they carry on doing it?

I didn’t see this, but absolutely they should not have done this. I guess they considered this female both a willing mate (but fertile? At that age? I don’t know) but also physically capable of taking care of herself. Whoever made that decision screwed up big time. I don’t get it though presumably people in charge of breeding programs know which animals are suitable and when and why?? Maybe it was just desperation to get some young from these two. Awful.

Presumably there will be an investigation. I haven’t seen the case you’re talking about but this sort of thing isn’t unheard of. I am very upset about an incident in an animal park near to me where a breeding program was embarked on - also for an endangered species - and it did not go well. There were fatalities. There will be an investigation but in reality what the outcome will be, who knows. Procedures can be followed but ultimately they are wild animals and inherently unpredictable. Zoological parks feel there is an imperative to breed endangered species for obvious reasons. But the only real answer is to stop humans doing the things they’re doing that are making vast numbers of species endangered in the first place. But that isn’t going to happen.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/tiger-instantly-kills-mate-during-28522553.amp

This explains it.

Oh and another point, you only know about this tiger because it is such a high profile animal. The situation I am referring to, in the park near me, you will never get to hear about. Smaller, less high profile species, probably won’t be missed by the visiting public as there are more of them than the single female tiger. And it isn’t a rare occurrence. I know the breeding program is trying to achieve a good thing, but this unnatural forced accommodation attempting to put two animals together simply because they are male and female is just not how it would work in the wild. They might as well just artificially inseminate them.

Should they really be trying to breed a 14yo female tiger in the first place?

They should be investigated, especially as he's done this before.

I agree. The keeper even explained that the tigress would have wild standards and might refuse his advances because of her instincts. She was unable to flee like she could in the wild and there were no other females in season for him to pursue instead. It was foreseeable. I hope they learn from this.

How did they get away with this? It's put me off the Series now?

I hope they learn from this

’They’ won’t. As I said, this sort of thing is happening in zoos all over the world. And definitely in the UK. The public only tend to know about it when it’s a high profile animal like a tiger. The public knows nothing of the number of other types of deaths in zoos either (unrelated to breeding). Or escapes - if the animal is successfully captured again.

I have seen breeding handled more sensitively, eg with the pair left inside with an escape route that only the female could use. Why they left her in an outside enclosure with no way to escape is baffling.

According to wiki:
The tiger can no longer reproduce after the age of fourteen.
What a stupid, stupid thing to do knowing he had killed before and choosing to put the female in danger just to try and get themselves some cubs. At her age is sounds like the chances were probably very small anyway.

Why they left her in an outside enclosure with no way to escape is baffling.

Ignorance or a lack of appropriate facilities; if they can't cope with handling a mating how would they cope with raising the cubs?

And I don't think the Mirror should describe the male as her mate. Mates are breeding pairs and they hadn't mated.

They can’t claim ignorance when they are part of EAZA and advised by WCA. This is the breeding program followed by all the European zoos that are members. Breeding a 14 year old Amur is indicative of how desperate they are to reproduce the species that has only a few hundred individuals left.

i would rather animals became extinct than to be captive in zoos. God humans are the worst.

I thought they artificially inseminated with these things? Especially as she was 14. They got the male tiger a few years ago, so why not artificially inseminator when the female was a bit younger? Is that frowned upon?

Artificial Insemination (AI) in cats is incredibly challenging due to the female cycle, it’s a very complicated and high risk procedure requiring sedation of both tigers.

(article)

So basically... they left an elderly female tiger defenceless with no escape route from a younger aggressive male, and he tried to rape and then killed her.

No point saying AI is high risk... this was clearly high risk.

Are they just allowed to get away with this?
Can't they be reported or anything?

Well, as they’re part of the European breeding program with EAZA and WCA, they presumably followed the rules set in place by those institutions. You could report to DEFRA but as this was high profile I imagine any investigation is done and dusted. It’s all the other stuff that goes on you don’t hear about that is eye opening. Born Free or PETA maybe, but again, they’re presumably already aware of it.

I am opposed to animals in zoos full stop.

Yes, it happened a while ago, but was shown this week. I wonder why they showed it on TV?

I would prefer to see animals die out than live in barbaric conditions. We had a visit to Chester zoo once ( a treat from GP) I was horrified at the children screaming and banging on the big cat enclosure. Then the poor Elephants, pacing backwards and forwards outside their indoor area. Clearly disturbed and gone crazy.
It's bloody cruel, enclosures are horrendously small and humans just wind them up.
I have never and will never go to another zoo.

That documentary did also say that tigers have barbs on their penises, and that this naturally hurts the females.
Also that tiger females are often killed by the more aggressive males during mating and this is also what happens in the wild.
So it was IMO not as plain as you said it in your OP.
This is said as an animal lover who has had lots of dogs and cats.

I seen it too, and I can’t get my head around why they would think that was the right decision, so crazy to me and such a sad loss I was literally sobbing when I seen her 😔

Sadly these things happen and it will get brushed under the carpet as just one of those things.
Seeing as the male had killed before it was stupid to try and mate him with another female even if the signs were showing they were happy in each others company and not showing aggression- the thing they usually leave out is that they had bars between them during these good encounters, it’s a totally different story when animals are released together in the same territory without bars no one knows what will happen.
A similar thing happened years ago at another zoo with white tigers. Sure it was also the female in that situation as well.

Breeding a 14 year old tiger is also very questionable.

This dosent make sense?