The Knuckleheads of the Day award

Today's winners are Doug Billingsly the owner of Lost Creek Animal Sanctuary and the people responsible for allowing Haley Hilderbrand to do a photo shoot with a Siberian Tiger. Ms. Hilderbrand age 17, was killed by the animal.

When will people learn these animals are dangerous not pets? I just don't know where people's common sense has gone to. Mr. Billingsley should have known better, he has been running this park for over ten years.

Here is the link to the Kansas City Star article.

MOUND VALLEY, Kan. — A Siberian tiger attacked and killed a teenage girl who was posing for a picture at an animal sanctuary Thursday morning in southeast Kansas, authorities said.

The Labette County sheriff’s office identified the girl as Haley R. Hilderbrand, 17, of Altamont, Kan. A release said Hilderbrand was at the Lost Creek Animal Sanctuary posing for a photo with the 7-year-old tiger, which was being restrained by its handler, when the animal turned and attacked her.

Officers and handlers killed the animal. Emergency personnel were not able to revive Hilderbrand, and she was pronounced dead at the scene.

Investigators have sent the tiger’s body to Kansas State University in Manhattan for a necropsy.

“This animal had been around people across the country and there’s never been a problem,” Sheriff William Blundell said in a telephone interview.

Doug Billingsly and his family opened the 80-acre sanctuary in 1994. According to the sanctuary’s Web site, the sanctuary has lions, leopards, bears, white tigers and even a liger, a rare cross between a lion and a tiger.