What was different here?

Those larger animals were probably not near schools and freeways.

Similar thing happened in Palo Alto a year or so ago, although it was just a mountain lion and not a how-cool-is-that tiger.

t eta Not that I'm fully buying the kill-first approach, but how much shit would Fish&Game be in if the drunked-up tiger caused a car crash or nibbled on a kid?

What was different here?

It was in a forest. It's not an instantaneous sleep. The animal had been roaming the forest since February 1st and was spotted near a home. Getting shot would have resulted in a spike in adrenaline. Tigers run fast, anyway. Under the thick cover, the animal could have escaped, hid, and recovered before being found. That was the reasoning given, at any rate.

Those larger animals were probably not near schools and freeways.

I'd be surprised if shooting a semi-tranked tiger before it got that far was that hard, but I don't do big game, so I'm just guessing. It's also possible my scale is off -- but I figure if you can trank a rhino, you can trank the much smaller tiger.

Or kill it if it then gets frisky.

::fumbles for pith helmet::

Under the thick cover, the animal could have escaped, hid, and recovered before being found

Thick cover? I need to look at the pics again. I didn't know we had any of that here.

But like Allyson said, it was in a forest, or at least dense underbrush - not so easy to be shot at like them rhinos in the savannah.

But like Allyson said, it was in a forest

Not in the pictures.

Dense underbrush. You try walking through chapparal. A SoCal forest would actually have been easier to track him through.

Dense underbrush, sure. Forest, nope. Especially not around there, which was burnt during the wildfires. It's all new growth.

I've never tried walking through chapparal (nor typing it) -- I'm assuming it's easier for the tiger to do, then.

As I said -- my naivete is such that if you can tranq a two ton rhino and not get trampled, 600lbs of tiger -- ah, well. It's dead now anyway.

You canNOT believe the tiger commentary that's going on here. My face aches with the laughing.

"It's a miracle of nature! And they killed it!"

"Trackers? I look out my bedroom window, see a tiger, and I'm a tracker?"

"Reach civilisation? In Simi? Not happening."

"Near the library? No need to worry about casualties -- the library's deserted."

"It's ORANGE. What took them so long?"

Timelies all!

Happy Birthday Lysana!

Didn't get to see Veronica Mars last night because it was pre-empted for basketball. As far as I can tell, this ep isn't airing any other time this week. Feh.

Thanks Kat!

There's better tiger hunt pictures here. Chapparal is usually tough brushy undergrowth, sometimes described as too short to go under and too tall to climb over. But if you are tiger-height, and also tiger-strong, it's just right.

Dude, six-inch pawprints, in the playground. So cool.