An eight-year-old mother giraffe, one that recently gave birth in Febuary this year, died at the SF Zoo today. (Giraffes usually live anywhere from 15 and 20 years.) Gezi collapsed today a little after noontime, and succumbed to cardiac and respiratory arrest. If you recall, over four years ago two elephants died at the local zoo, and just last year a tiger named Tatiana was shot and killed after mauling a visitor. What leads us......

In what must have been the six most shit-laced months of his life, Manuel Mollinedo, the executive director of the San Francisco Zoo, has resigned. Ever since Tatiana the tiger went for Carlos Sousa's jugular last Christmas, and made minor Bay Area celebrities out of the bumbling brothers Dahliwal, the San Francisco Zoo has faced "high zoo employee turnover" and "abysmal morale." Tanya McVeigh Peterson, a zoo society board lawyer will serve as interim......

Carlos Sousa Jr.'s autopsy report has just been released to the public. According to ABC 7's Dan Noyes, the San Francisco Medical Examiner’s Office's report details the massive (and pretty graphic) injures Sousa suffered from Tatiana the tiger on Christmas Day 2007 at the San Francisco Zoo after a tiger escaped from her grotto. The report confirms the cause of death: “Blunt force injuries of the head and neck (predatory cat bite(s)).” The evidence......

Paul Dhaliwal--Christmastime tiger attack victim, and currently in the process of trying to sue the city of San Francisco over said attack--might be looking at some time in the clink. After Dhaliwal went on a shoplifting spree last month, which included the brazen act of stuffing of two Wii controllers down his pants, San Leandro cops are recommend seven felony charges be handed down to him. According to the San Leandro police spokesman Lt.......

Looking to get a few bucks out of the city for the Christmas Day tiger attack that claimed the life of their (alleged) friend Carlos Sousa Jr., Amritpal and Kulbir Dhaliwal have filed claims against the city. Finally. And our sources sent SFIst a copy of the claim! (We'll try to get that up for you shortly.)...

The San Francisco Zoo announced today that Leanne, the 230-pound Sumatran tiger, is now caring for three newborn cubs. The SF Zoo, which came under scrutiny after last year's tiger-related mauling death of 17-year-old Carlos Sousa Jr., says that this is the first birth of Sumatran tiger for the zoo since 1956. It turns out Leanne had three of the cubs over a week ago, but kept them accidentally hidden from view of zoo......

On Thursday, Juan Zuluaga, 26, was arrested at the SF Zoo following a run-in with a rhinoceros. It seems, according to the Chron, that Zuluaga was busted for throwing acorns at Mashaki, a black rhino: Police said they were summoned to the zoo at 3:30 p.m. Thursday after a patron reported to officials that Zuluaga was picking acorns off a branch and tossing them at the black rhino, a male named Mashaki. Zuluaga was......

Let's not think about that mauling incident or the possibility that one or both of the Dhaliwal brothers pissed into the tiger grotto, prompting the Christmas Day attacks. No, instead let's think about the bundle of joy born at the Zoo this past weekend: a little giraffe, right. Sure, it was yesterday's news, but the adorable image was just released, and the story wouldn't have been complete without it. All together now: aw. Also,......

A 245-pound Sumatra tiger in Hawaii was found wandering the grounds of the Honolulu Zoo on Thursday morning. it seems she "wandered out of her cage" during closing hours. According to AP (via the Merc): A startled female volunteer reported the escape after the tiger brushed past her. The volunteer quickly retreated and secured a second gate that kept the tiger from going into a public area. It took zoo workers several minutes to......

The big cat grottoes re-open for public view....

Ride your bike at the San Francisco Zoo without fear of ejection or arrest on the BikeAbout tour. ...

Because Valentine's Day is about necking, red roses, and Whitman's Samplers -- and not about making that special someone your creampie cutie for the night, you perverts -- the San Francisco Zoo's annual adult-only "Zoo Sex Tour" has changed its name to “Woo at the Zoo.” Why? No idea. But the zoo tells us: Contrary to common belief, the animals will not “mate on cue” during the Zoo’s adults-only affair (21 years and older),......

Glorious, isn't it? Raising the walls of the grotto 16.4 feet, in order to meet the minimum guidelines of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, the first phase of improving the SF Zoo's four big-cat grottos is complete. The tweaks were needed, as most of you know by now, after Siberian tiger Tatiana escaped and killed Carlos Sousa Jr. during the now infamous Christmas Day tiger attacks. The second phase of the project, according to......

Due to the "unusual and extraordinary" Christmas Day tiger attack at the San Francisco Zoo -- which resulted in the mauling death of 17-year-old Carlos Sousa Jr. and wounding of Paul and Kulbir Dhaliwal -- a three-member tiger team formed by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums has been called in to examine the zoo's big cat grotto. While the investigation and renovations are underway, the tigers and lions are currently kicking it indoors.......

According to today's Examiner, Tatiana will not, in fact, be honored with a gravestone complete old Sicilian widows throwing themselves onto her coffin. Instead, her "body parts will be probed and preserved while the rest, including the tiger’s coat, have already been incinerated. It’s just what happens to all zoo animals after they die." ...

At about 7:10 a..m. this morning, Lisa, a San Francisco Zoo zebra died. Named Lisa, the zebra was born in February of 1998. (An Aquarian? An even greater loss.) According to a spokesperson at SF Zoo, "reports of [Lisa] salivating while on exhibit in the African Savanna led to an examination by the Zoo veterinarian. The zebra was placed in her indoor stall in the Hoofstock Barn and treated with a common equine medication."......

Damn. Ing. An eyewitness has stepped forward, giving her account of what she supposedly saw on Christmas Day at the SF Zoo. Jennifer Miller, who visited the now infamous park with her husband and two small children, tells the Chronicle what she claims to have seen, just before the Tatiana mauled Carlos Sousa Jr. to death and injured Paul Dhaliwal and Kulbir Dhaliwal. "The boys, especially the older one, were roaring at them. He......

As seen in the graphic above (pulled from the LA Times), and because of last week's fatal attacks, tiger security improvement is needed. Soon. In 30 days, according to the Gate, SF Zoo will have a brand spanking new tiger-grotto security system. The architect who created the zoo's Grizzly Gulch exhibit, Sam Singer, will also now design the safer new tiger grotto. Although no details of the new tiger grotto designed have been released, we're......

Where to begin? Well, for starters, the page's score set to The Lion King's eleventh-hour song "Circle of Life." While we tend to loathe music set to any page on the webs, this is fitting. And touching. But Tatiana's official postmortem MySpace page offers more than just Elton John-manufactured teardrops. You can find informative links to such items as the transcript to Nancy Grace's show on the tiger attacks, a makeshift memorial of sorts,......

Behold, the tight-lipped duo who, at this point last week, couldn't have imagined the death and subsequent big-cat madness in store for them today. Under supervision at San Francisco General Hospital, due to severe bite and claw wounds since last Monday, Paul Dhaliwal, 19, and Kulbir Dhaliwal, 23, were released into the wild yesterday afternoon. In addition to the brothers' hospital release, NPR reports that all the big cats at SF Zoo will most likely......

Less than a week after the fatal tiger mauling at the SF Zoo, much of the news that has (slowly) unraveled from the Christmas Day tiger attacks has been disheartening. From the downplayed info about the too-short tiger pen fence, conflicting evidence that the three boys taunted the Siberian tiger just before the attack, and that emergency protocol wasn't followed by SF Zoo employees, there are more chin-scratching facts to add to the list.......

Uh oh. According to the cats over at the Chron, an "18-page 'Emergency Procedures' manual, written in 2006, spells out what zookeepers, guards and even the receptionist in the main office are supposed to do if a 'Siberian tiger is out of its enclosure' or any other dangerous animal escapes." (It's always the receptionist's fault, isn't it? The fall guys of the modern world, really.) Basically, such emergency procedures as a "Code One" call,......

(Ah, the year of the tiger. OK, month of the tiger. But still.) A reader brings up an interesting point -- thanks, reader! -- who asks, "The boys had it coming. True, but can they be buried/released from the hospital before we start pointing fingers. Did this happen before 24/7 news channels existed?" (S)he makes a good point. Surely something similarly maul-related has happened before at a zoo somewhere, yes? Happened on busier news days......

Not only was Tatiana a gorgeous, majestic, and endangered creature. It seems that she had a special talent for sniffing out liars, too. It has been revealed that the uncooperative, tiger-mauled Dhaliwal brothers received a phone call from Carlos Sousa Sr. on Christmas Day when Carlos Jr. failed to show up for Christmas dinner. The father asked if they knew where his son was and was he with them? The brothers lied, saying that the......

Second verse, same as the first: The San Francisco Zoo will remain closed on Friday, December 28, 2007. Please visit www.sfzoo.org for information as to when the Zoo will reopen to the public. According to their site, the zoo claims to be closed "out of respect for the victims of Tuesday's incidents," although we imagine that their reverence for said tiger attack victims has waned considerably. Just saying. In all reality, the continued closure......

Update: The murdered teen has been identified as Carlos Sousa, Jr. As the investigation continues into Christmas Day's gruesome tiger attack at the SF Zoo, it turns out that the guy killed by Tatiana the tiger was a 17-year-old boy from San Jose. Unidentified at this point, and currently stuck with the moniker "John Doe 116," it seems that he also knew the tiger's two other victims, 19- and 23-year-old brothers from San Jose. The......

Dr. John Brown of San Francisco General Hospital told Good Morning America today that the two survivors in yesterday's tiger attack (which killed one) are "doing well at the present time. They have both gone through their surgeries well. They're both in stable condition." The two still unnamed tiger attack survivors have suffered from lacerations, large cuts, bite wounds (i.e., puncture wounds) primarily on the head, neck, upper extremities. While the injuries are very......

SFPD arrived at the zoo to find the critically endangered cat on top of one of her victims. According to CBS 5, "the tiger then started moving toward [the] group of approaching police officers, and they opened fire with handguns," killing Tatiana. As of now, it's not known just how the tiger managed to escape, well, captivity....