I'm saddened at the loss of both the human and the jaguar in this incident. The deaths could have been avoided by not keeping wild animals locked up in cages for amusement, money and, allegedly, education. If there's anything to learn here, it's that wild animals belong in the wild, and we should leave them alone.
UPDATE:
A new story from Fox31 Colorado goes into more depth, featuring such telling quotes as the follwing, from Mara Rodriguez, an instructor at the Exotic Animal Training and Management Program at Moorpark College in California:
"Regardless of the handling, the hand-rearing, the years of captivity, that animal is still a jaguar," she said. "Any predator is a predator and it will always have that instinct. They are looking for opportunities to be themselves."(italics mine)
Zoos don't exactly give them those opportunities. Shouldn't we be questioning the validity of institutions that purport to be working in the best interests of animals if they don't even allow animals to live according to their own interests?
