Bobo's owner questions why tiger needed to be killed.

Articles: Bobo's owner questions why tiger needed to be killed.

Posted by admin on Wednesday, July 14, 2004 - 12:35 AM

Bobo's day on the run ended in gunfire less than 400 yards from home.
A state wildlife officer shot and killed the 600-pound Bengal-Siberian tiger with an M-4 rifle shortly after 5 p.m. Tuesday in thick brush in a neighbor's back yard, ending a 26-hour hunt during which authorities repeatedly missed chances to bring Bobo down with a tranquilizer dart. At one point Monday evening, the cat had passed within 20 feet of his pursuers. The unidentified officer had no choice but to shoot after the tiger lunged at him with teeth bared and ears pressed backward, said Maj. Brett Norton of the state Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. The officer was not injured. Other officers had been approaching the tiger with tranquilizer guns, commission spokesman Jorge Pino said. Bobo's grieving owner, former Tarzan actor Steve Sipek, angrily denounced the officers' account as "the biggest lie they manifested." He contended Bobo couldn't have lunged because he fell dead under branches, where Sipek suspects the tiger was sleeping. Sipek said he heard five gunshots, a detail the commission would not confirm. "Bobo didn't have to die today," said Sipek, who arrived at an impromptu candlelight vigil hours after spending a few moments with his dead tiger, emerging with the animal's blood staining his shirt and jeans. "It was easier for them to shoot.... There are cruel people out there." Norton disputed Sipek's charge: "This has been a long 26 hours for all of us. We made every attempt to capture Bobo." About 50 residents attended the vigil. Some held up signs: "Bobo deserved better than heartless assanation!!" (sic) and "Bobo Endangered Species shot down in cold blood." Hours before the shooting, Sipek wiped away tears at times as he feared the worst. "I'm afraid they're going to kill him," he said at one point Tuesday afternoon. In the passenger seat of a friend's Toyota Tacoma, a despondent and unshaven Sipek peered out the window through bloodshot eyes for any trace of his missing tiger. "I'm not going to sleep until I find Bobo," he said. After the tiger's death, neighbors shared the sorrow. "It's sad. I didn't expect it," said Kitty Mei, who has lived on C Road for 15 years. She said she had been watching the chase unfold on television and hoped officers would tranquilize the tiger. "Hopefully, they didn't panic," Mei said. But she added, "You don't want to see anyone mauled, either." Officer felt 'threatened,' spokesman says Outside Sipek's home, Robyn Brow and her son, Joseph, 11, placed a wooden cross in the ground at the front gate. Someone else had planted a U.S. flag. Another laid flowers. "If you live here, you know Bobo," said Brow, who had never met the cat. "To us, it's like one of our family members has been killed." When Palm Beach County sheriff's deputies drove past the home Tuesday night, some mourners muttered "murderers" and "cowboys." Pino said the officers considered the tiger's life second only to human safety, and tried to protect both. He expressed sympathy for Sipek's loss. "He thinks that these (animals) are his kids, so he's very upset and understandably so," Pino said. "But I guess after the grief period is over, he can understand the reasons why we needed to do what we needed to do." Pino would not identify the officer who shot the tiger. The commission also did not disclose how many shots were fired or how far away Bobo was. But the commission vowed to investigate the shooting, as well as the details of the tiger's escape Monday from Sipek's home. Pino and commission spokesman Willie Puz held back from saying the tiger attacked the officer. "I don't want to use the word attack," Pino said. "The officer felt threatened enough that he needed to use lethal force." The tiger escaped sometime before 2:30 p.m. Monday from Sipek's compound, somehow getting past his 12-foot fence -- sparking a classic confrontation between creeping suburbia and Loxahatchee's often wild lifestyle. Sipek is one of only two South Florida residents who hold state permits to own big cats as pets, said Susan Weaver, the wildlife commission's chief of permits and licensing. They were grandfathered in before August 1980, when the state prohibited non-commercial ownership of tigers, lions, bears and other dangerous animals. In Palm Beach County, two nonprofit wildlife sanctuaries and the Palm Beach Zoo at Dreher Park also own tigers under permits allowing the animals to be held for exhibition. Puz, the commission spokesman, said he didn't know of any permit violations by Sipek. He said Sipek was cleared of any blame for an incident two years ago in which Bobo bit and fractured the skull of a painter who had entered the tiger's cage. In 1985, a three-legged leopard ran from Sipek's house after someone had used bolt-cutters to open a gate. The leopard was retrieved unharmed. Officers weren't sure how Bobo escaped, but they said they didn't believe he jumped or climbed the fence. Sipek said it was impossible to jump the 12-foot wall and said he suspects someone opened his gate -- to rob him or for revenge. "I think somebody broke in and saw the cats," he said. "I had bad relations with a woman. She's done a few things like that already." Jan Mahoney, a postal worker in the area for about 20 years, said she saw Bobo around 2:30 p.m. Monday -- just outside the open left side of her mail truck. "I must have scared him," she said. "I remember those gold eyes looking at me.... I could have petted him right here." Sheriff's Sgt. Michael Antonopoulos said a deputy saw the tiger shortly afterward, running back and forth across C Road and swatting at cars on a nearby dirt road. Neighbors reported hearing Bobo from brush within 300 yards of the home, and some witnesses said they spotted him swimming in a canal along C Road. Sipek joined wildlife officers in tracking Bobo through nearby woods. They reported coming close to capturing him twice Monday before TV news helicopters spooked him. Officers lost him again on Tuesday morning. Officers spurned offers of help from bystanders offering bait to lure Bobo out of hiding. On Monday, a woman showed up with a pig in the trunk of her car, calling it "a big mouse for a big cat." Another woman offered her roosters as bait. A representative of Critter Control offered the use of his traps, in place of the tranquilizers the wildlife officers relied on. At any one time, the wildlife commission had 10 to 12 officers staking out a perimeter around Sipek's home or actively searching for the cat. Adding more people to the search for Bobo would have only hindered it, Lt. Charles Dennis said. Longtime locals weren't afraid, some say "The more people you have, the more you drive him to the ground and get less results," Dennis said. Before Bobo's death, the saga of the fleeing feline seemed to inspire more fascination than fear among Sipek's neighbors in Loxahatchee, a rural community where unorthodox livestock and pets are common. The story drew widespread media attention, with inquiries from CNN, Fox News, comedian Jimmy Kimmel and an Australian radio network. "These animals are like Steve's kids," said Carrie Correll, a next-door neighbor of Sipek's for 25 years, who said she spotted the tiger Monday afternoon in her back yard. Instead of calling sheriff's deputies, she called out to Bobo, but a helicopter overhead put the tiger on the move. "I feel secure," Correll said of Sipek's collection. "I don't think they'll hurt us." But two doors down, Katie Hoot said her father wasn't taking any chances Monday night. He got out his shotgun and rounded up their horses. "I can see why there is such a commotion," Hoot said of the Bobo-mania. "He is a wild, huge cat." Joe Celiberti, who owns Weston Nursery near Bobo's home, closed his business for fear one of his workers might be injured. But he said most longtime locals weren't afraid. "We've known Bobo since he was a little animal," Celiberti said. "It's a shame. As we get more citylike, all of the quiet things that usually happen out here now become news for the world."

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