Attica! Attica!
I hate zoos. When I was little I hated how they smelled, and when I got older I hated their exploitative existence. The last time I set foot in one was in college, for some idiot biology paper. They are prisons for innocent animals, where other animals pay to gawk and torment and feel superior. They began as places where kings could show off their wealth and their global reach by astonishing their subjects with giraffes and tigers. These animals should be replaced with holograms or IMAX or something.*
As exhibit A, I submit the Calgary Zoo, clearly the Parchman Prison of zoos. According to today's Guardian, seven Humboldt penguins were discovered drowned in a temporary holding pool, apparently the result of "a state of panic," whatever that means. Last February an otter drowned after getting tangled in a pair of pants some zookeeper thought would be an amusing toy. Penguins and otters, left to their own devices, do pretty well in and around water.
The place has a murderous history. In 2009 a capybara (big rodent) was crushed to death by a hydraulic door. In a probably unrelated incident, a gorilla took a knife away from a keeper and menaced the "humans." (We don't need no steenking opposable thumbs!) In 2008 41 stingrays died because their tank was insufficiently oxygenated. That's a lot of stingrays. The year before that, a hippo died after being brought from the Denver Zoo for an "international breeding program." I hope it had some fun first.
The last thing I remember from my day at the Bronx Zoo is the expression on the gorilla's face as he watched me watching him. It was unbearably sad. I went home. He didn't.
Freedom.
*One of my favorite movies is Turtle Diary, where two people kidnap some sea turtles from the London Zoo, drive to the coast and return them to the sea. Don't bother to look for it on cable -- it has no zombies.
As exhibit A, I submit the Calgary Zoo, clearly the Parchman Prison of zoos. According to today's Guardian, seven Humboldt penguins were discovered drowned in a temporary holding pool, apparently the result of "a state of panic," whatever that means. Last February an otter drowned after getting tangled in a pair of pants some zookeeper thought would be an amusing toy. Penguins and otters, left to their own devices, do pretty well in and around water.
The place has a murderous history. In 2009 a capybara (big rodent) was crushed to death by a hydraulic door. In a probably unrelated incident, a gorilla took a knife away from a keeper and menaced the "humans." (We don't need no steenking opposable thumbs!) In 2008 41 stingrays died because their tank was insufficiently oxygenated. That's a lot of stingrays. The year before that, a hippo died after being brought from the Denver Zoo for an "international breeding program." I hope it had some fun first.
The last thing I remember from my day at the Bronx Zoo is the expression on the gorilla's face as he watched me watching him. It was unbearably sad. I went home. He didn't.
Freedom.
*One of my favorite movies is Turtle Diary, where two people kidnap some sea turtles from the London Zoo, drive to the coast and return them to the sea. Don't bother to look for it on cable -- it has no zombies.
posted by Buttermilk Sky at 11:06 AM
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