What is the definition of taunting? Just yelling across a moat or throwing little pebbles and sticks? I figure if they threw anything else into the enclosure, it would have been found already. I don't consider that to be a serious offense. I am amazed that no other tiger has escaped before.
Well, taunting only requires verbal insults, and it qualifies as a misdemeanor offense. Whether what they did can be established remains to be seen. But regardless of whether they were taunting or not, it of course doesn't excuse the zoo's negligence. Had they physically defeated security mechanisms to allow the tiger to escape, that would be one thing, but it should have been impossible for that tiger to escape on its own.
And yes, I'm astonished that no other tiger has escaped in the last 67 years given what is known about these circumstances.