Tiger Attack At Tippi Hendren's Shambala

An animal caretaker with 20 years of experience at Shambala, Tippi Hedren's wildlife sanctuary, was attacked by a 4 year old Bengal Tiger while cleaning the tiger's enclosure.

The caretaker was bitten in the neck which is a normal predator-prey response. Tigers go for the back of the neck.

Tigers are not pets. This mishap shows how dangerous a tiger can be even for someone with 20 years of big cat experience.

Shambala was started in 1983 as an outgrowth of a film Ms. Hedren did, kind of her own Heaven's Gate, called Roar. Shambala is home to that abomination of the animal world, the liger (dad's a lion and mom's a tiger). Ligers (and its opposite, the ti-ion) are bred solely for our amusement and require sanctuaries for their care after retirement from the entertainment business.

Tippi Hedren is the president and cofounder with Vernon Weir and Wally Swett of the American Sanctuary Association.

Links are in green. The title for this post is a link to the tmz.com post about the tiger attack. Tmz.com updated their post a couple of times. Their last update includes an mp3 file of the 411 call.

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