October 04, 2003
BAD CAT
Roy has been attacked:
One of the tigers in Siegfried & Roy's Las Vegas show bit Roy Horn in the neck Friday night, seriously injuring him, according to a spokesman for MGM Mirage.
Emergency officials treated Horn at the Mirage Hotel-Casino around 8:20 p.m., for massive blood loss.
Australian R&S fans were clueless:
A group of Australians witnessed the attack from the front row of the crowded theater, and said they thought it was just part of the show.
"A lady ran past me, freaking out and it was then I sort of, in the back of my mind, thought now this isn't part of the show," said David Strudwick. "And then you look at the staff and they had a bit of horror in their eyes and .. it was like, wait a second, it may not be a part of the show."
No kidding.
(Via the Gweilo.)
UPDATE. Roy is now listed as critical.
UPDATE II: This isn’t the first tiger trouble for Roy and Siegfried. From the Evening Standard of January 21, 1997:
Posted by Tim Blair at October 4, 2003 07:54 PMTourists watched in horror as a white tiger used in the magic act by Las Vegas act Siegfried and Roy ate its mate. The tigers were on display at an indoor zoo at the Mirage Hotel on the Vegas strip between acts when the attack happened. Male tiger Baroda grabbed his mate Nirvana in his fangs and the pair had a twenty minute battle as shocked tourists and children watched from behind safety glass.
Let's have a big hand for Anastasia! She loves show busyness ya, so much better than the savagry of the jungle!
Posted by: Amos at October 4, 2003 at 10:08 PMCould have been worse. Siegfried might have bitten Roy
Posted by: Le clerc at October 4, 2003 at 11:18 PMAnyone recall the item on the Simpsons? Why the fuck those albino bengals haven't turned those pilow-biters into tiger-shit has me buggered.
Siegfried and Roy deserve to be in the litter box.
So Siegfried and Roy deseve it eh, "Habib"? Because they are serial animal abusers or because they are "pillow biters"? Personally I think the tigers are better off in Las Vegas than Siberia - have you ever tried to get a Surf and Turf for less than $10.00 in Vladivostok? All power to the big cats but I sense a smidgen of homophobia in your post Habib.
Posted by: JonT at October 5, 2003 at 07:07 AM"Could have been worse. Siegfried might have bitten Roy."
MIGHT have?
Any bastard who'd use a wild animal as part of a sleazy Vegas act deserves to get bitten.
I just hope the tiger doesn't get food poisoning.
Some people would consider breeding white tigers to be animal abuse, as they're a mutant strain of Bengal that's been bred sibling-to-sibling and offspring-to-parent since the 1950s, and are starting to show some defects from the years of inbreeding. For that matter, I would not be at all surprised if one of the problems that's popping up is temperamental instability. White lions, which they're also trying to breed, have thus far been much less lucky in showing up relatively sound.
I don't really think Roy deserved to get mauled, but I do think it was more or less inevitable. I don't know anyone who's worked with big cats for so long who hasn't been attacked at least once.
Posted by: LabRat at October 5, 2003 at 10:36 AMLabRat--I didn't know that about white tigers--I thought that they simply occurred rarely in the wild and that zoos bred some from exchange animals.
I still think that using them for entertainment sucks, though.
i think the accepted PC term for a poofieboy is "RUMPRIDER".
Posted by: roscoe p at October 5, 2003 at 12:20 PMIt doesn't matter a shit to me that Roy is a tailgunner, he is, however German, and deserves to be mauled for that fact alone, not withstanding making wild critters make fools of themselves.
Posted by: Terminator at October 5, 2003 at 03:23 PMdid siggy kick that naughty pussy's arse? BAD puss!.. BAD puss!...
Posted by: roscoe p coltrane at October 5, 2003 at 07:05 PMI would probably go crazy if I was kept in an outdoor pen at the Mirage year-round as well. It gets up to like 115 degrees there in the summer. Those poor animals can hardley move it's so hot. I went last year in august and we visited the little 'zoo' at the mirage. The cats were all just lieing down in whatever shade they could find, panting. It was kinda sad.
Posted by: amy at October 7, 2003 at 07:22 AMKeith- yep. ALL the white tigers you see on exhibit in zoos and in circuses and rich idiots' enclosures are descended from a single individual captured in the wild in the fifties. Take a close look next time you see one- among the more obvious problems that are beginning to show in more recent generations are crossed eyes and some deformations in the hind legs and tail. (Look for kinks and crooks in the tail and a limp.)
White lions are descended from a pair of cubs born in an African game park in the late nineties. Attempts to breed more have produced so far more deformed individuals than sound; they don't seem to be as lucky as the tigers.
Posted by: LabRat at October 7, 2003 at 12:41 PMAmidst all the zoology lessons and German jibes, can I just say, nobody's taking my tiger away. He keeps my crocodile company and tidies up after the visitors.
Posted by: anthropomorph at October 7, 2003 at 12:50 PMI PRAY FOR ROYS RECOVERY AS I WOULD FOR ANY PERSON IN THAT SITUATION,BUT I FEEL NO MATTER HOW MUCH A WILD ANIMAL IS LOVED OR HOW WELL IT IS KEPT IT WILL ALWAYS HAVE THAT WILD ANIMAL INSTINC IT IS JUST BREAD IN THEM,THEY SHOULD BE ABLE TO BE IN THERE NATURAL INVIROMENT.
Posted by: mccravey at October 15, 2003 at 11:24 PMSeveral come imediately to discount mind. It makes me think of something generlogies out of High Fidelity, which is lowest a movie I liked, although a part airfare of that is certainly because cheap it was a movie about, partially ticket for, and potentially by, music cheapest people. I want to read the book flight it was adapted from, too...the low
Posted by: flight ticket at October 17, 2003 at 06:59 AM