Escape and Slaying of Tiger Probed : Wildlife: USDA official will determine whether park rangers could have prevented the animal’s escape and subsequent shooting.

A U.S. Department of Agriculture inspector on Wednesday examined the tiger enclosure at the San Diego Wild Animal Park to see if park rangers could have prevented the escape Saturday of a Sumatran tiger that they later shot and killed.

The 300-pound tiger was killed as it bolted from its hiding place in thick brush toward a six-foot chain-link fence 10 feet away--the last barrier keeping it in the park.

The 3-year-old male tiger escaped from its 1-acre fenced enclosure after a driving rainstorm had washed away the earth beneath a chain-link fence and its 3-foot-wide concrete anchor, park officials said.

It was the first time in the Wild Animal Park’s 20-year history that an animal was shot and killed after getting out of its enclosure.

Animal activists have chastised the park, saying it should have built a more secure enclosure and criticizing the decision to kill the animal.

But as they have steadfastly maintained since the incident, park officials on Wednesday said they had virtually no choice but to shoot and kill the animal, the most dangerous among the 300 species maintained at the 1,800-acre animal reserve. It was one of six Sumatran tigers--an endangered species--at the park.

The Wild Animal Park’s policy specifically gives advance permission for park rangers to shoot and kill escaped cats, given their inherent danger and the difficulty of using tranquilizers on them, as rangers tried unsuccessfully to do Saturday.

“This was a tiger, and there’s no other animal on earth that’s known as a man-eater,” park spokesman Tom Hanscom said. “It’s the most dangerous animal we have here. . . . It could easily have leaped the fence.

“We would have had to assume that as soon as the cat left our property, it would be dead anyway because local law enforcement officials have shoot-to-kill orders. They would have shot and killed the animal. The only question was, is the animal going to end up dead after a couple of humans are dead, or is it killed first?”

Dr. Manuel Adviento, the USDA veterinarian and zoo inspector, viewed the Sumatran tiger enclosure Wednesday morning but offered no reaction to his escorts, Hanscom said.

“We haven’t gotten anything out of him,” Hanscom said. “The people who were with him said he had some questions and took notes--and that he’d let us know, maybe by next week.”

Adviento could not be reached for comment.

Dr. Homer Malaby, the USDA’s animal care specialist in Sacramento, said Adviento’s orders were to inspect the enclosure to determine if the escape could have been anticipated and prevented, and to review the Wild Animal Park’s handling of the escape.

The USDA licenses zoos and other animal exhibitors.

Park security rangers discovered the tiger at 6:10 p.m. Saturday in an area used by employees to park their vehicles. Its exhibit had been checked and deemed secure earlier in the afternoon by animal keepers before they went home for the day at 2:30 p.m., Hanscom said. The park was cleared of visitors at 5 p.m., and it was unclear at what time the tiger worked its way through the three-foot hole under the fence.

Hanscom said a park veterinarian staked out the thicket for nearly an hour in an effort to shoot the animal with a tranquilizer dart.

For the dart gun to work, the animal must be standing still, and perpendicular to the gunman, so the relatively slow-moving dart can penetrate a relatively small target of muscle. If the animal is moving, the dart will simply deflect off its hide, Hanscom said.

On Saturday, he said, the animal never presented itself for such a shot. While rangers saw brush moving from the tiger’s movement, the only time it showed itself--in the dark and during the rainstorm--was when it bolted toward the fence.

At that moment, the rangers shot the animal twice, striking it in the head and shoulder.

The washout of the enclosure was the first in the 19-year history of that particular enclosure, Hanscom said.

“We’ve had far heavier rains than that, and have never had a breach of the enclosure,” he said.