Zoo Visitor Pets Jaguar - Keepers Find Shriveled Finger 1 Week Later

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - "A New Mexico man made a hasty exit from a zoo after climbing close to a cage to illegally pet a jaguar, but police were able to track him down by the severed finger he left behind.

The shriveled and dried finger from the man's right hand was found outside the cat cage last week by a groundskeeper, Tom Silva, assistant director of the Albuquerque Biological Park, which includes the zoo, said this week.

The owner of the finger has been identified and is forbidden to return to the zoo, Silva said, adding the park is not planning to press criminal charges. "I think he's suffered enough," he said.

The man was a frequent visitor and an official zoo member. Eyewitnesses had seen him fleeing the zoo last Tuesday holding his bloodied hand."

EDIT

http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/25184/story.htm

...had bitten a keeper's finger off a few years ago.

Kitty's got a habit, it seems.

the safest way of dealing with them requires high explosives.

When I was a zookeeper we considered the jags the most untrustworthy and dangerous of the big cats. On one occasion I got slack, turned my head while my foot was near the 3-4" space under the bars where the waste was hosed out. The jag moved close and in a deft swipe slit my rubber boot and dragged my sock 3/4 off my foot and 1/2 way out of the boot. I was not scratched. Very impressive and scary critters.