Bay City News Service via The Contra Costa Times
SAN FRANCISCO — San Francisco firefighters got a call Monday to help rescue a cat — a really big cat.
Battalion Chiefs James Blake and Lorrie Kalos and their crew arrived at the San Francisco Zoo at 8:30 a.m., after zoo officials decided their geriatric Siberian tiger Tony was spending too much time alone in his moat.
A little more than two hours later, a drugged and subdued Tony was pulled from the moat and temporarily moved to the Lion House, where he will remain until the zoo figures out how to “geriatrify” the outdoor exhibit.
San Francisco Zoo keepers waited four days before requesting the assistance of the fire department to fetch Tony, who is 18 years old the equivalent of 90 human years, according to a news release issued by the zoo.
While zoo spokeswoman Lora LaMarca said it is not unusual for Tony to crawl down into his moat, too many days had passed since he took the keeper steps down into the moat on Thursday afternoon.
While Tony was keeping himself entertained in the moat, zoo officials were concerned that accumulating water mingling with food would attract flies and pose a health risk.
In order to move the 360-pound tiger, a crew of firefighters and zoo keepers first anesthetized the big cat, then moved Tony onto a board and lifted him out with a combination of people-power and a pulley system.
“It’s not unusual for Tony to go into the moat,” mammal curator Ingrid Russell-White said in a prepared statement. “It’s one of his favorite places.”
He was playing, drinking and eating and Russell-White said “he just was not motivated to climb the steps or rocks to return to his exhibit.”
LaMarca said Tony, at the ripe old age of 18 years, is showing some signs of senility. Siberian tigers have a life expectancy of 10 to 15 years in the wild and 14 to 20 years in captivity.
Tony’s most recent annual veterinary review came back normal for a tiger his age.
Although the zoo has two other tigers Leanne, a 7-year-old female Sumatran tiger, and Padang, the wizened elder of the group at 21 years old Tony spends most of his days alone.
Tony came to the San Francisco Zoo in 1993 and LaMarca said he’s just leisurely living out his days. She said there might have been a behavioral issue, rather than a medical one, for Tony’s stubbornness.
“He opted not to crawl out of the moat,” she said. “You know what they say about cats; they’ve got minds of their own.”
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