His life before the wilderness is not fondly remembered. It involved a brutal, dimwitted, alcoholic man, a run-down shack of a mobile home, and many animals crammed into cages far too small for them. He was not kept for fighting, but for the satisfaction of owning a unique almost-wild animal. <BR><BR>

When the man was arrested for assault, Sirocco and his fellows were being transferred to a van that would take them to be euthanized. But because the cages were never tended to, the locks were faulty and the latch on his was jostled open while he was being carried. He escaped and fled into the woods where he's lived off scraps and scavenged meals.