The San Francisco Zoo is scheduled to reopen Thursday, but Acting Mayor Sean Elsbend said that may not be the case. Elsbend, filling in for Mayor Gavin Newsom who is helping Democrats campaign in Iowa, said the city planned to ensure that there is accountability for the tiger maulings that claimed the life of Carlos Sousa Jr., 19, of San Jose on Christmas Day.

San Francisco Zoo officials announced during the weekend that professionals from the Association of Zoos and Aquariums would be reviewing the zoo’s big cat exhibits, which are closed indefinitely, but according to the association, the San Francisco Zoo is an accredited AZA member in good standing.

MEANTIME

The two brothers who could shed the most light on how the attacks occurred have yet to speak out since leaving the hospital. Carlos Sousa Jr.’s funeral is scheduled for Jan. 8 in San Jose, his friends have also posted a MySpace tribute to him online.

ALSO, brothers Paul Dhaliwal, 19, and Kulbir Dhaliwal, 23, who suffered severe bite and claw wounds, were released from the hospital Saturday, leaving through a side door amid a crush of reporters. The brothers offered no comment and were seen arriving later that day at the family’s San Jose home. No one answered the door at the home or the phone and no other witnesses have emerged aside from the brothers themselves who seem likely to be able to shed light on the exact sequence of events, but have been difficult with police investigators.
Keep Reading …

SATURDAY UPDATE

THIS COMES FROM VARIOUS REPORTS and also a San Jose Mercury News article.

More interesting questions and some dramatic details about the police call, the 911 call and what transpired inside that zoo on Christmas night. Zoo officials initially thought a San Jose man was “making something up” when he told them a tiger was on the loose and had bitten him, according to a transcript of police dispatches released Friday afternoon.
The report reveals the chaotic scene Christmas night when a Siberian tiger escaped her cage at the San Francisco Zoo and attacked three victims, killing 17-year-old Carlos Sousa Jr. Nearly two tense hours would pass between the initial 911 call from a cafe employee and the 6:57 p.m. message that there were no additional victims, “no employees trapped, all tigers secure.”

In that time, the dispatches reveal, zookeepers tried to shoot the tiger, Tatiana, with tranquilizers; zoo security initially did not allow police inside; and a zookeeper disobeyed police orders and ran to the pen by himself as officers tried to account for the zoo’s other cats after mistaken reports that as many as four tigers might have been roaming the zoo. Keep Reading …

These pictures come from our new blogger Roman. He was at the zoo two days before the killing and snapped these photos of the tiger before the attack/escape.

These photos give us all a better picture of the animal at the center of this story. Thanks Roman for the pics! I will have another update in a couple of hours.

Meantime, the latest info is below.

This is the latest update from zoo officials and also the San Francisco Police Department. It still doesn’t answer whether the young men taunted the tiger and that is still being investigated. Investigators still believe that taunting is what spurred this animal to launch itself out of the tiger compound. According to the AP…..Carlos Sousa Jr. (the 17 year-old killed) and his friend’s brother desperately tried to distract the 350-pound Siberian tiger, but the big cat instead came after Sousa.

“He didn’t run. He tried to help his friend, and it was him who ended up getting it the worst,” the teen’s father, Carlos Sousa Sr., said Thursday after meeting with police.

Investigators also revealed that the tiger’s escape from its enclosure may have been aided by walls that were well below the height recommended by the accrediting agency for the nation’s zoos. San Francisco Zoo Director Manuel A. Mollinedo acknowledged that the wall around the animal’s pen was just 12½ feet high, after previously saying it was 18 feet. Keep Reading …

THURSDAY NIGHT UPDATE

According to San Francisco Police Chief Heather Fong, “There is a shoeprint on the railing.” “Our forensic analysis will allow us to determine if any of those shoes match the print that is on there.”"We have no information as of this time from the investigation that tells us that someone’s leg was slung over the rail,” Fong said. At the same conference, zoo director Manuel Mollinedo said he believed the tiger escaped its enclosure over a wall nearly 13 feet high, or about three feet below the minimum height recommended by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums. The wall and a 33-foot moat separate the tiger’s enclosure, which dates to 1940, from the public viewing area, Mollinedo said. “She had to have jumped,” Mollinedo said, ruling out any escape through an opened gate orservice area. Chief Fong also said the brothers fled when they saw the cat had killed their17 year old friend and the tiger caught up with them about 300 yards away at a cafe on zoo grounds. That’s where Police found the tiger and shot it dead.

Like Wednesday, the morning began early. Outside the zoo the air is damp and bone-chilling. We hear few sounds other than the hum of satellite truck generators and a few zoo employees have begun to arrive at this very early hour.

We are also hearing more information about our exclusive report yesterday. Officers had told us as they went into the zoo to investigate, that they believed taunting was involved. As we reported that yesterday, a few other people in the news industry questioned us, even suggested we stop our reports. Now, it appears ever stronger, that investigators are looking at taunting and even the possibility that one or more of the men attacked, helped the tiger escape.

Through a report in the San Francisco Chronicle and our sources and reports, here’s what you need to know … the latest:

• a shoe print found in the 18-foot fence that separates the tigers from the public.
• a blood trail found from that fence to the outdoor cafe’ 300 yards away. That’s where officers found the tiger and the two victims that survived.
• sticks and pine cones found in tigers moat, according to the zoo, likely thrown in there by someone.
• parents of killed man say they are meeting with investigators Thursday afternoon.

Click here for a full map of the San Fran zoo.