LOXAHATCHEE -- Wildlife officials shot and killed a tiger Tuesday that escaped from the home of a movie actor who once played Tarzan after they said the 600-pound beast bared his teeth and lunged at one of his trackers.
Officers said they had no choice but to shoot 6-year-old Bobo two days after the declawed Bengal-Siberian mix escaped the 5-acre compound where Steve Sipek has cared for discarded cats since his own brush with death on a movie set more than 30 years ago.
"We're very sad to report the tiger is deceased," said Jorge Pino, a spokesman for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. "We wanted to shoot him with a tranquilizer, but unfortunately the officer felt enough in fear of his life where he had to use lethal force."
Returning to his compound two hours later, Sipek, 62, who raised Bobo since he was a cub and often allowed him to roam the house and sleep in his bed, was covered in blood from embracing his dead animal's carcass.
"They murdered him. They murdered him. They murdered my Bobo," he wailed in grief. "They want the glory. They want to say, 'We killed the tiger. We saved the people.' "
News of the big cat's death brought a strange drama in the quirky rural Palm Beach County neighborhood of Loxahatchee Groves to an unexpected ending, leaving many residents almost as distressed as Sipek.
"I was crying my eyes out when I heard," said Nicholas Hernandez, 14, who lives nearby. "I met the animal before, and it was really peaceful with me. It's sad to see the creature go."
Wildlife officials said they would launch two investigations, one to determine how Bobo left Sipek's property Monday afternoon, where the mail carrier and other neighbors reported him lying on the road and lunging at cars around 2 p.m. The other investigation will examine the shooting.
Wildlife officials gave only sketchy details of the shooting Tuesday night and would not identify the wildlife officer who fired the fatal shots.
But Maj. Brett Norton said the officer was walking through dense woods northeast of Sipek's house when he spotted the tiger and summoned the team who could shoot the animal with a triple punch of tranquilizer, knocking the cat cold within five minutes.
But they didn't arrive in time.
"The officer stood by and waited for the dart team to arrive," Norton said. "The officer saw the cat turn around 180 degrees. The cat lunged at the officer, ears down, and showed his teeth."
Wildlife officials and many of Sipek's neighbors in Loxahatchee Groves say the retired actor who played Tarzan in a couple of "B" movies in the 1960s and '70s has an excellent record of care of his odd menagerie, which -- according to a June inspection by state officials -- consisted of two lions, one cougar and, until Tuesday, two tigers.
Two years ago, wildlife officials cleared Sipek of any wrongdoing when Bobo attacked a regular visitor to Sipek's compound, Carol Pistilli of Boynton Beach. They ruled that Pistilli had let herself into the compound without ensuring that the cat was properly caged. Pistilli has endured numerous operations for a torn skull and damaged facial nerves.
Sipek began devoting his life to caring for big cats, many of them maimed animals discarded from zoos, after a lion rescued him from a burning movie set. Sipek, a Croatian native who used the stage name Steve Hawkes, has said in interviews that Samson dragged him to safety when fire broke out during filming of Tarzan and the Brown Prince in 1970.
From then on, he said, he cared more about cats then people, spending more than $5 million providing for more than 50 cats during the past three decades. He was licensed by the state, which grandfathered him in from a 1980 law that prohibited big cats as personal pets.
"Everyone out here knows him," said Geoffe Moreland, who was watching the spectacle engulfing his road from his golf cart, his black Labrador named Harley in the passenger seat. "We all call him Tarzan and he lives in the perfect place. It's wild. There's brush everywhere, and his house doesn't have doors. It has large tarps -- like big doggie doors -- so the cats can go in and out."
"He's lived here forever and he's a legend," said Melissa Reiter, a community-service aide for the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office. She had been summoned to the major intersection near Sipek's house, Okeechobee and C roads, just after daybreak to direct traffic, of which there was plenty.
A parade of gawkers joined the regular logjam of landscapers, farmers, horse trailers and pool workers on the main thoroughfare, prompting neighbor Gaye Hankla to erect a plywood sign at the entrance to her egg farm.
"Slow Down. Tiger Alert," it read in fluorescent orange.
She offered some enticements to lure Bobo home -- 10 of her surplus roosters -- but wildlife officials weren't biting.
They preferred to rely on the reliable methods of tracking and searching with armed foot patrols, hoping to spot the tiger or fresh paw prints that would reveal his whereabouts.
They were encouraged Tuesday morning when trackers found some prints northeast of Sipek's compound, but about an hour before noon, with the unrelenting sun beating brighter and hotter, they did what they assumed Bobo was doing: They took a break, resuming the foot patrols at about 4:30 p.m.
"He's probably hunkered down for the heat of the day," said Lt. Charlie Dennis, the wildlife investigator in charge of the search.
Dennis spoke about 2 p.m., and at the time, dismissed suggestions that Bobo was much of a threat to the public.
"He's more likely trying to get back home, and we're going to assist him," Dennis said. "He's always been in captivity. His mama has never taught him to hunt. He's declawed. Other than being 600 pounds of kitty, I don't think he's a danger."
But just 15 minutes later, Sipek returned to his compound from an errand, and with tears streaming down his face, predicted the bad ending that would soon come just after 5 p.m.
"I know they're going to kill him. I'm worried about them killing him," he said. "My baby. My baby."
Akilah Johnson of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel contributed to this report. Maya Bell can be reached at
mbell@orlandosentinel.com or 305-810-5003.
Im a big lover of cats and reading this article brought tears to my eyes.