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gategrrl I'm ten days late with this, but, oh well. Apparently the three youths (they were NOT children) taunted the Siberian tiger by standing up on the railing/fence just outside its enclosure. They all had alcohol and pot in their systems, and it's very possible they were throwing things at the animal.
The article reports that there had been reports through that day of a group of young men being rowdy and disturbing the peace (such as it is, in the SD zoo), but no one put it together or did anything about it.
I think the zoo has to have stricter policies on public drunkeness and rowdy behavior, not to mention automatically ejecting families with children who persist in bothering the animals in their enclosures. As the tiger showed, not all these animals are defenseless, but they have little to NO power behind their fences to get back at people who drive them mad and trigger their hunting or running reflexes.
This story reminds me of another one - where a little girl in a Minnesota zoo jumped the fence, was bitten by a meerkat defending its territory. ALL the meerkats in that encloser had to be killed in order to be tested for rabies. Why? Because the 9 year old's parents didn't want her to get a rabies shot, even though she made a real effort to touch them. Five meerkats, murdered because of selfishness. I hope that family were given a bill for the cost of replacing those poor animals. Three of them were kits.
It's too bad there isn't a Stupid Test before people go into the zoo. It's as if some people have a short circuit in the brains that make them think that just because an animal is behind bars, or plexiglass, or whatever, that it's used to people and will have a song and dance at the ready. Fortunately, I think most people wouldn't dream of taunting the animals (not intentionally, anyway) or provoking them. But yeah, Darwin, baby. Darwin works. If it has to be a tiger making Darwin's law work, so be it.
The article reports that there had been reports through that day of a group of young men being rowdy and disturbing the peace (such as it is, in the SD zoo), but no one put it together or did anything about it.
I think the zoo has to have stricter policies on public drunkeness and rowdy behavior, not to mention automatically ejecting families with children who persist in bothering the animals in their enclosures. As the tiger showed, not all these animals are defenseless, but they have little to NO power behind their fences to get back at people who drive them mad and trigger their hunting or running reflexes.
This story reminds me of another one - where a little girl in a Minnesota zoo jumped the fence, was bitten by a meerkat defending its territory. ALL the meerkats in that encloser had to be killed in order to be tested for rabies. Why? Because the 9 year old's parents didn't want her to get a rabies shot, even though she made a real effort to touch them. Five meerkats, murdered because of selfishness. I hope that family were given a bill for the cost of replacing those poor animals. Three of them were kits.
It's too bad there isn't a Stupid Test before people go into the zoo. It's as if some people have a short circuit in the brains that make them think that just because an animal is behind bars, or plexiglass, or whatever, that it's used to people and will have a song and dance at the ready. Fortunately, I think most people wouldn't dream of taunting the animals (not intentionally, anyway) or provoking them. But yeah, Darwin, baby. Darwin works. If it has to be a tiger making Darwin's law work, so be it.
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Date: 2008-01-29 07:25 pm (UTC)The meerkat case the other year made me cry when I heard about it :(
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Date: 2008-01-29 07:26 pm (UTC)BTW, I believe you mean 'SF Zoo'. When I first read the title, I thought, "There's been an attack at the San Diego Zoo?"
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From:no subject
Date: 2008-01-29 07:41 pm (UTC)Taunting animals in the zoo is never cool. But taunting animals that, until recent times, feasted on us is really stupid.
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Date: 2008-01-29 08:20 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2008-01-29 11:01 pm (UTC)We went and found a zookeeper and told her what was going on, and she took off for the exhibit doing about Warp 8 and swearing under her breath.
Some people just have to learn the hard way. It's a shame they get to breed before that happens.
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Date: 2008-01-29 11:23 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2008-01-30 03:10 am (UTC)My sister is a zookeeper, and from her stories, the number of idiots at zoos is way more than the people who appreciate the animals. Most people bang on the glass, or make weird noises, or throw things to get the animals attention instead of just observing them. Plus, when people ARE doing stupid things, they"re usually dangerous to people too. It isn"t easy to tell them to cut it out. Zoos need more security, and most of them just don"t have the money to fund that.
(Sorry about the " marks...I did something stupid, and now my apostrophe brings up a "find on page" bar, not an actual apostrophe. Argh!)