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Unfazed by tranquilizers, bison still loose
By ROBERT FARLEY, Times Staff Writer EAST LAKE -- Where does a 2,000-pound bison go when it has been muscled out of the herd by a younger male? Pretty much anywhere it wants to, deputies learned Monday and Tuesday. The bison, named "Big Daddy," escaped Monday morning from the East Lake estate of retired professional basketball player Matt Geiger. From there, it made its way into an abutting portion of the Brooker Creek Preserve used for horse trails. For two days, more than a dozen officials with the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, county Animal Services and the Humane Society chased the gentle beast through swamps, open meadows and wooded areas. At about 6:40 p.m. Tuesday, the search party called it a day. "Bottom line, he's still out there," said sheriff's Cpl. Kent Johnson.
Tuesday, searchers hit Big Daddy in the flank with at least three tranquilizer darts, said wildlife commission Lt. Steve DeLacure. Each time, the bison got to its feet and ran away as humans approached. The effort to bring Big Daddy home started with gentle coaxing. Early on Monday, Geiger brought the bison food in a bucket and tried to lure it back home. Then the workers and volunteers tried to form lines to herd it toward Geiger's property. "We would only get him so far, and then he'd get through our lines," Johnson said. Of course, it was not as if their lines were impenetrable. "You're not going to stop a 2,000-pound buffalo," Johnson explained. At times, searchers would get close to the animal only to have it spooked by television news helicopters overhead. Using a tranquilizer was considered a last resort, Johnson said, "because a lot of times that can be fatal." "It's a sad thing," he said. Geiger, the recently retired, 7-foot-1 NBA center, rescued Big Daddy and nine other emaciated buffalo from a drought-stricken Hudson farm in 2000. The buffalo were brought to his 100-acre compound at Keystone and Old Keystone roads, home to his 26,000-square-foot mansion. Coming and going from the search Tuesday, Geiger would not respond to questions from reporters.
Big Daddy is an older male, said Craig Huegel, the preserve manager and administrator of Pinellas County's division of environmental lands. "He was being picked on by a younger, more aggressive male," Huegel said. Huegel said the animal apparently jumped the fence. Jumped? "Yep," Huegel said. "They can jump. They are more agile than people think." The animals also are very docile, Huegel said. They are used to people. In short, he said, there was no public safety issue. As the search went on, children played soccer just a few hundreds yards north of the preserve where the bison roamed. "There's not much likelihood it wants to leave our property," Huegel said. "But we can't leave it up there." The preserve is fenced, Huegel said, but "there's nothing that could stop it from going where it wanted to go." Meanwhile, DeLacure said he planned to investigate how the animal got loose to determine if a criminal charge against Geiger was warranted. It is a misdemeanor to handle an exotic animal such as a bison unsafely, resulting in escape, DeLacure said. Even so, "the public is not in any immediate danger of any kind," DeLacure said. "It couldn't have happened in a better place, as opposed to say downtown St. Petersburg," he said. "Of all the scenarios, this one is not that bad." - Robert Farley can be reached at (727) 445-4185 or farley@sptimes.com.
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