[FEL-L] Marcus Cook faces charges in death of 4 white tiger cubs

[BigCatSimba at aol.com]

Tiger exhibit operator faces charges  
Brandon Stahl Duluth News Tribune 
Published Saturday, July 07, 2007 
While the reasons four white tiger cubs died this week at a traveling 
exhibit in Duluth still are unknown, the operator of the exhibit faces 
numerous charges by the USDA for mistreating his animals, as well as 
putting them in a position that has caused injuries to the public. 
Marcus Cook, who has told the News Tribune he is both the senior 
animal specialist and senior zoologist with Texas-based Zoo Dynamics, 
said Friday that allegations against him are "99.9 percent are 
completely incorrect, unfounded or misrepresented." 
He also said that he never lets the public handle his tigers. 
But a complaint filed in May by the U.S. Department of Agriculture 
claims Cook has supervised numerous animals that received improper 
veterinary care and had numerous untreated health problems, and that 
he allowed the public - including children - to handle tigers. The 
charges date from 2002 to 2007. 
Also, in 2003 the Texas attorney general's office obtained an 
emergency court order to prevent Cook and the company he was then 
associated with, ZooCats, from exhibiting tigers. 
The attorney general's office wanted to stop the company from putting 
the public in harm's way for allowing "children and adults to touch 
and hold them [tigers] without regard for disease or possible public 
harm," according to a news release from the attorney general's office. 
The office also claimed that ZooCats lied about connections with the 
National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and was set up as a false 
nonprofit, using publicly donated money for profit-making purposes. 
As part of Cook's agreement with the attorney general's office, 
ZooCats was dissolved and Cook must not represent that he has a good 
safety record. He also must not tell people he has a bachelor's degree 
in zoology. He was ordered to pay $100,000. 
Cook has denied making any misrepresentations. 
Cook's tigers have been involved in at least three biting or attack 
incidents, the most recent in June 2006 in Texas when, according to 
news reports, a Bengal tiger escaped its cage and mauled a yard 
worker, who required 2,000 stitches as part of his treatment and 
recovery. 
Cook said Friday that the man had a history of mental illness and 
signed a statement saying he was attempting to commit suicide. 
Cook said the two tigers at his exhibit are in good health, but he 
referred all questions about the cause of death of the tiger cubs that 
died Thursday to Dr. Kelly Manzer, who he said was a veterinarian with 
Zoo Dynamics. Manzer did not return a phone call seeking comment 
Friday. 
Zoo Dynamics released a statement Friday saying it suspected the tiger 
cubs' deaths were caused by congenital defects. 
Ron Tilson, director of conservation at the Minneapolis-based 
Minnesota Zoo, said all white tigers are inbred. Tilson said white 
tigers can trace their origins to a white tiger captured in India in 
1951, which mated with one of its daughters, which had a recessive 
gene to create another white tiger. 
"They're all so highly inbred almost to the level of brother and 
sister," said Tilson who, because of that, believes breeding white 
tigers is inhumane. 
"This is abuse; this is not natural. It's doing something that is 
contrary to what nature would order," he said. "They are producing 
cubs that are not doing well simply for the sake of making money." 
Tiger cubs born in captivity do generally have a higher mortality 
rate. Cubs handled by humans have a higher chance of death, said Tammy 
Quist, executive director of the Wildcat Sanctuary in Sandstone, Minn. 
Wildcat Sanctuary is the only accredited big cat sanctuary in the 
Upper Midwest. 
"A traveling exhibit is not a good situation for tiger cubs to be in," 
Quist said. "Who hauls around a pregnant tiger in a trailer from Texas 
to Minnesota?" 
Cook said he never allowed the public to touch or handle the cubs, and 
he never allows people to touch the adult tigers. People can pay to 
feed them, but that is done by handing food over a gate with a pair of 
tongs. 
Though Cook told the News Tribune on Thursday that a veterinarian from 
the Lake Superior Zoo examined the cubs the morning before they died, 
Dr. Louise Beyea said that was not true. 
Instead, she said she saw the cubs only after they died to provide a 
referral for them to be transported to a facility for diagnostic 
results. 
Beyea did not know where the animals were sent. Beyea also said she 
did not know what caused their deaths but that, based on a limited 
observation, she did not see "any abuse or mishandling" on the part of 
Zoo Dynamics. 
Under Minnesota law, municipalities don't have to examine traveling 
animal exhibits' safety records. 
BRANDON STAHL covers health. He can be reached at (218) 720-4154 or by 
e-mail at bst_..._ 
(http://groups.google.com/groups/unlock?msg=38d01f44bc043c92&_done=/group/BigCats/browse_thread/thread/f4b3cd153156796f) 
@duluthnews.com. 
_http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/articles/index.cfm?id=45627§ion=..._ 
(http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/articles/index.cfm?id=45627&section=homepage)  



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