Tiger's owner: 'They murdered him' :: Namibia Internet Gateway cc ::

Articles: Tiger's owner: 'They murdered him'

Posted by admin on Thursday, July 15, 2004 - 02:17 AM

Steve Sipek mashes his hand into the puddle and pulls it up, dripping in blood.
"Right here, see this blood?" he says. "This is where they killed my Bobo." He is speaking to a group of reporters, something he has been doing virtually nonstop since his beloved 600-pound Bengal-Siberian tiger was shot to death Tuesday by a wildlife officer who said he feared for his life. Sipek doesn't buy it. "They murdered him," he says. And he's telling anyone who will listen that Bobo was not a ferocious killer. He was a pussycat who didn't deserve to die. "Bobo was a gentle giant," says Sipek, 62, a former actor known as the Spanish Tarzan. "He loved people. He loved me. Little did he know that death waits for him from people who are heartless." Even as he holds up his bloody hand, his cellphone rings -- another call from another journalist who wants to know about Bobo. His compound, a last-chance sanctuary for tigers, lions, a jaguar and a cougar with no place else to go, has become a circus. Media trucks crowd the road and coaxial cable snakes along his dirt driveway. Reporters have moved in. There's NBC News. A producer from Larry King Live is calling. Local stations are going live. People drive from miles away just to place flowers at a makeshift shrine in front of his gates. "We'll miss you Bobo," says one poster. Daniel Correll, 14, collects money to buy a plaque. In less than an hour, he raises $350. "I'm devastated," says his mother, Carrie, 47. It seems the whole world wants to know why Bobo had to die. "It's good I've been so busy," Sipek says. "Otherwise, I'd just fall apart." Still, he begins crying as he speaks of his favorite big cat, the one he has fed and cared for for six years. Millions spent on big cats "My heart is not there anymore. Bobo was the only one who was able to fill the emptiness in my heart. If the Lord would come down and say, 'You want to go with Bobo?' I'd go. As long as someone would take care of my other animals." Sipek says he has spent millions over 35 years caring big cats. He says the money -- $7 million in all -- came from his movie earnings. "I didn't think $7 million would have to last for 35 years." It was while making his first Tarzan movie that he fell in love with big cats. "The day was the 31st of October, 1970. We were shooting a scene where Tarzan and Jane were to be tortured. Somehow, something went wrong. Somebody spilled some gasoline. The whole set exploded. With all the 300 people on the set, nobody rushed in to pull me out. Nobody tried to save me. Except my lion Samson. He dragged me out. That day my life changed forever." He bought 5 acres in Loxahatchee and built a compound that would house a total of 102 big cats over the years. Now there are only five -- Missy the cougar, Oko the jaguar, Elvis and Stephanie the lions and Princess the tiger. There are no creature comforts for him -- he has almost no furniture -- but the animals live like kings. Their cages are lined with granite on the floors. They have plenty of turkeys and beef to eat. "They eat better than I do," Sipek says. "It costs $200 a day to feed them all." And while the animals are confined to a series of cages, they do have the run of the house. "They even sleep in my bed. Sometimes there are so many of them, they push me out. I wind up sleeping on the floor." As he makes the rounds to feed the cats, Sipek has no fear. He walks into their cages, cuddles and sweet-talks his cats. "A lot of people will grow old and die and never know how much we love tigers," he says. Just two days earlier, his favorite, Bobo, had escaped. Sipek still doesn't know how. "Someone must have opened a gate," he says. "There is no other way out." And for one day, Bobo the tiger was truly free. He made the best of it, taking a swim in a canal, swatting at passing cars, napping in thick brush. He even paid a visit to the neighbors. But 26 hours after slipping out of his compound, Bobo's romp through this rural community ended in gunfire. Owner plans necropsy Sipek returns to the site and finds three shell casings from the assault weapon used to bring down his cat. There are paper sheets numbered from 1 to 5, indicating how many shots were fired. Sipek pockets them to turn over to a private investigator he has hired to find out what happened. He plans to retrieve Bobo's body from wildlife officials and have his own necropsy conducted. He has set up a special account at Fidelity Federal because so many people have offered to make donations. But still, his mind races back to Tuesday, when he was desperately trying to find his missing tiger and he heard the sound of gunfire. "I felt five shots entering my heart," he says, tears again streaming down his face. "Bobo was dead. Bobo got free and realized it was a jungle out there. He just didn't know how to come home."

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