Tippi Hedren’s Tiger Mauls A Man
Then buzz it up
December 4th, 2007 at 14:30 by Stuart Heritage
As the star of The Birds, Tippi Hedren developed a profound understanding with all forms of wildlife - except for her tigers, which still go around indiscriminately mauling folk.
A tiger living the animal sanctuary owned by actress Tippi Hedren - who, along with The Birds, has also starred in The Birds II and one episode of Murder She Wrote - has attacked and mauled a caretaker who was cleaning out its enclosure, leaving him in a critical condition with multiple bite wounds. Speaking of the attack, Hedren said "What makes these animals so dangerous is for no reason at all this kind of accident can happen."
Which is funny, because we always assumed that what made tigers so dangerous is the fact that they're sodding tigers, you massive idiot.
Even since God criticised the animals working on the film Jumanji for not mauling Robin Williams while he was right there in front of them, large animals have been taking in on themselves to try and wipe out a swathe of celebrities with their inherent mauling abilities. There was the Siegfried and Roy lion-maul, the Chef from South Park mauling and now one of Tippi Hedren's tigers has mauled one of Tippi Hedren's caretakers.
Since she refuses to get arrested for drink-driving or go to parties without any knickers on - partly because she's from a classier generation and partly because she's 77 years old and, well, bleurgh - Tippi Hedren has never really been a target for much hecklerspray attention in the past.
That's not to say that she isn't famous, though - Tippi Hedren has starred in two Hitchcock movies, I Heart Huckabees and more TV shows than you can shake a stick at, plus ever since she was attacked by a lion during the filming of 1981 flop movie Roar she's been the owner of the 80-acre Shambala Preserve wildlife sanctuary 40 miles north of LA.
And all was well - until yesterday, that is, when one of Tippi Hedren's four-year-old tigers attacked and mauled caretaker Chris Orr. Although Orr was airlifted from the sanctuary and is now reportedly in a critical but stable condition, questions are starting to be asked about the safety of the sanctuary. Not that Tippi Hedren blames herself, the caretaker or the tiger itself, though, as she told the Los Angeles Times:
"It's a terrible, terrible thing that has happened. Who knows what happened to this tiger? People have kept them in closets, basements. Two of them were kept in air-conditioning systems… It came walking over to them. What makes these animals so dangerous is for no reason at all this kind of accident can happen. It isn't the tiger's fault. It is the fault of the people breeding these animals in the first place that leads them to be here."
Regardless of this, though, officers from the California Fish and Game department are investigating how such a potentially tragic episode could have taken place.
Our guess is that Tippi Hedren tried to warn the caretaker of the impending tiger-mauling, but her panicked cries of "Run For Your Life!" and "Tiger By The Tale!" were misconstrued by the worker as just crazy old Tippi randomly shouting names of films and TV shows she's starred in again. "Yes yes, you were very good in all of those things," we expect Chris Orr cheerily shouted back at Tippi, "although I feel I have to point out that you were never in a movie called Get The Hell Out Of The Cage Do It Now Do It Now My God Man There's A Fucking Tiger Behind You Oh Why Aren't You Listening To Me You Dimwit."
By which time it was all too late.
We expect.
Read more:
Tiger mauls caretaker at actress' animal sanctuary - Los Angeles Times
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December 4th, 2007 at 2:50 pm
The following is a partial listing (659) of incidents in the U.S. involving captive exotic cats since 1990. The U.S. incidents have resulted in the deaths of 19 humans, 15 adults and 4 children, the additional mauling of 172 more adults and children, 137 escapes, the killing of 80 big cats, and 113 confiscations. There have also been 149 big cat incidents outside the U.S. that have resulted in the deaths of 56 humans and the mauling of 85 humans by captive big cats. These figures only represent the headlines that Big Cat Rescue has been able to track. Because there is no reporting agency that keeps such records the actual numbers are certainly much higher. http://www.bigcatrescue.org/big_cat_news.htm
December 4th, 2007 at 3:23 pm
The real tragedy here is that most people who are dumb enough to keep tigers are rich enough to pay people to care for them, thus never themselves being in much danger. While the victory scored against Siegfried and Roy was heartening, it underscores the importance of famous morons appearing alongside their dangerous animals, with a bare minimum of safety measures in place.
Maybe like a neck protector made of skirt steak.
December 5th, 2007 at 11:31 pm
Too bad Carole Lewis Baskin has no authoritative figures to quote — that’s why she makes them up. And I guess it doesn’t matter if a “sanctuary” is accredited or not; serious injuries occur as the result of mistakes by people — not the animals. Shame there is no law against stupidity (or liars).