…. Is like a steel trap. She remembers everything! I’m back in New York now from the West Coast.

As you know, I was visiting my family in the Sacramento area when I was called for tiger mauling duty at the San Francisco Zoo this week.

When I got home last night, I called my mother, and we were talking about how horrible a story this was, and how scary it would be to have a tiger the size of Tatiana coming at you.

She started talking about a story I did a year ago while I was on the Geraldo show about a big cat rescue park in Florida, which quite honestly, I had forgotten about. (hey, we do a LOT of stories here, it’s hard to keep track of them all)

My mom told me that she remembers being a bit worried when she saw my original blog pictures of me feeding the tiger at the park. I dug through some boxes when we got off the phone to try to find them to show you….

As you can see, these tigers are in actual cages, which made me feel somewhat safe at first, but I must admit, when this tiger got up on his hind legs, my heart dropped when I saw how tall he really was. His power and strength was just radiating off his striped fur coat.

It’s hard to imagine that there wasn’t a cage like structure around the lion and tiger exhibit at the San Francisco Zoo, but officials there had felt confident that the enclosure, which included a wall and moat that separated the cats from the public was sufficient.

There is word today that the wall that was originally reported to be 18 feet high, was really only 12 feet, 5 inches high. That’s nearly 4 feet below the minimum requirement set by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums guidelines for tigers.

The zoo’s director says they believe that Tatiana the tiger escaped by jumping over the wall, not by an open or unlocked gate, but police investigators say they still don’t know what happened. All of us have wondered out loud why there were no surveillance cameras on the zoo’s property, and now officials there are reportedly planning on adding them, along with new fencing and an electrified barrier around the exhibit because of the Christmas Day maulings.

Meanwhile, the investigation continues into whether the 3 victims may have taunted the tiger, and somehow come in contact with the tigers by jumping the fence, and dangling a leg or two in front of the massive cats before Tatiana escaped. The zoo, which was supposed to be re-opened by now remains closed again today as police continue to try to figure out what happened. I know I wouldn’t want to be making a trip to the zoo with a child in a stroller until someone comes up with some answers.