Enough is enough...the Calgary Zoo needs
 

help or shut it down:

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNew...hub=TopStories

Looks to me like a freak accident. How many children have died from accidents with toys, cribs, etc that have found to be unsafe and recalled after the fact?

i agree with it being an accident, and zoo's should not be shut down anymore than all of our tanks should be

how many wild animals get crappy care and are bought knowing they have almost no chance of long term survival.

Yeah I think you're over reacting, accidents happen. You can't say they didn't care or try, they gave CPR to a goat! That's more than I would do.

Zoos are somewhat cruel places for animals but that's the price of entertainment. However I also believe good also comes from it in the form of research.

If you think the calgary zoo is bad there is alot worse. There was a zoo in between edmonton and calgary with tigers and stuff, from what i have heard it was disgusting and many lawsuits were filed against the place.

For sure looks like a freak accident. if you read the last artical they talk about the animals that have died... now the stingray incident, we all should know what over loading a system does or what ever happened.

does the calgary zoo contribute to research?

The Calgary zoo contributes a lot to research, species survival and the well being of many animals, they also have one of the most succesfull breeding programs for Canada most endangered species the Vancouver Island Marmot. All in all I think this was a freak accident and will continue supporting them and all the fantastic work that they do.

fair enough, that's a plus for them in my books. I am not a fan of institutions that are pure tourist attractions.

this particular case seems like a freak accident to me and the article's subject (some random woman) doesn't strike me as someone who knows the inner workings of what went down that day. She (or the media portrays her to) assumes that the zoo's vet staff took too long to get to the enclosure... but how can she know that, if she wasn't there? the staff were already performing CPR by the time she got back!

the article also chooses to forget a few details in this little segment "In November of last year, an elephant calf died from a virus. And last May, 41 stingrays mysteriously died. In 2006, four gorillas died, including a baby less than two weeks old. Two years before that, a three-week-old elephant died after being rejected by its mother." the elephant rejection was not something they could control to any degree; that's mum's responsability. I am not sure how sanitary their facility is but, in captivity, babies die. sad, but that's all there is to it, so you can't point fingers at the calgary zoo in particular because it happens everywhere; you just don't hear about it. Did anyone ever follow up on the rays? im still curious about that one. my point is that we don't know any of the details to these occurences. so we can't pass judgement on the zoo, good or bad, based on them.

I have a question for all the people who are upset about this. Have you NEVER, EVER had an animal die in your own private zoo? If you haven't then congratulations, if you have then what is the difference? The only one I see is that the Calgary Zoo has professionals on staff to care for the animals, while us hobbiests are rank amateurs.

I have been to Calgary, Toronto and Vancouver Zoos and by far my favourite is Calgary.

Well you have to face the fact that the media nver sugar coats anything. if anything it puts a black cloud over all.

also almost no animals if any are wild captured for a zoo thier all bred at other zoo's and traded in breeding programs or to a zoo with a suitable enclosure,
any wild animals that do end up in zoo's are rescue animals like the orphaned bears when the mother was killed by a logging truck, one of the eagles was found with broken wings and a missing eye and im sure their are lots of other man caused accidents that the zoo is now taking care of.

as for them doing research the calgary zoo is a huge supporter of animal sanctuaries around the world, i seen a yearly spending report for the zoo once and it spends crazy amounts of money on things around the world.

+1

Of the zoo's I have been to in Canada (Edmonton, Vancouver, Calgary) the Calgary one is the best with the most suitable enclosures, the Vancouver zoo is the worst.

Of the zoo's on a world wide scale, San Diego Zoo is by far the best I have ever been to followed by the Sydney Zoo.

This seems to be a an accident that one really could not predict.

I would however be interested in why the rays died.

Agree with everything said here. While a zoo isn't maybe a perfect thing to have exist in the first place it does bring everyday people closer to nature and hopefully make them care about it a bit more. I support the zoo even tho in some ways I don't fully agree with them even existing...same thing as this hobby I love so much.

have to agree, nothing sells more papers than a little controversy....

direct quotes

"After Williams returned to the goat exhibit, she saw a zoo keeper attempting CPR on the goat, but it was too late."

then

Williams said she believes zoo officials may have taken too long to reach the goat.

"It was quite a few minutes," she said. "It wasn't five. It was probably more."

how did she know, she wasn't there and "she believes" ?????? who is she and what does she do??????

this is the media making a story from a tragic situation, is it a horrible shame??, yes but it's hard to lay blame not actually being there.

Yes, even this quote ....."It wasn't five. It was probably more."....is somewhat contradictory. The first part..."It wasn't five. ...."...is definitive. But the second part...".... It was probably more."....is not, and actually suggests that maybe the first part is not so definitive at all. Clearly said by someone who didn't know facts.

LOL, sorry...I should hang like a goat...:lol:

I saw the interview with the woman and it was my understanding she had told the dim bulb in the gift shop about the entanglement with the rope....to which the gal replied they do that all the time. It was my understanding in the interview that she went back again after the goat fell, and was strangling.

Maybe I saw it wrong. Or maybe, where is that video? So I can watch it again to be sure?

Oh well, let's go breed more elephants !!! Whoo Hoooo !!!

I don't think about that so much. I care about animals a lot....

There has to be a few of each type you know....:biggrin:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBc0HgW2zHw

found the ctv news video

It's sad that it happened but...you know where a lot of animals die?

The wild.

I know that statement may incite some but it's true, accidents happen.

Now I'm not going to get into an ethical debate about whether zoos are right or wrong but I do believe that we have a moral obligation to provide the best care possible for the animals we keep, and that in this case if it was truely a freak accident then we can't really fault them for it.....Yeah, they've had some animals die over the last couple of years but out of hundreds of animals those are still pretty good odds!


As far as zoos go, Calgary is pretty decent, if the girl from the gift shop was stupid enough to say "oh, it happens all the time" we have to remember....she's the girl from the giftshop. I doubt she personally cares for any of the animals, which is a good thing!

I'd like to know what eventuallu happened with the sting ray thing too.

Good point could have been a meal a long time ago.

I've yet to see a wild animal hang themselves :), plus don't knock the gift girl..it's ignorant.

good point made. IME people who work in the gift shop don't generally mix with animal care staff and aren't always hired for... intelligence. That said, there are exceptions. Right now im dating a girl from the giftshop who's even more than a fish nut than i am and is pretty tight with some of the cold saltwater aquarists. technically, either way, something like that should be radio'd in IMMEDIATELY and I wouldn't be surprised if giftshop girl said that just to placate the woman but reacted right away by contacting her superior or the care staff directly.

imo, comparing the zoo to the wild is apples and oranges. a zoo (or any captive application) tries to mimic nature but will ultimately fail. captive animals usually either die from captivity effects (like our freak accident goat among others) or outlive their wild counterparts. neither is natural.

Wild animals get hung up in fences fairly often. I've found 3 deer hung up in fences over the years. Last spring I had to cut a fence to get a calf moose out of it. The moose was fine, Momma was a bit cranky though.

I go to the zoo almost every Sunday morning with my family, we love it there. With regards to the sting rays. I had a nice chat with one of the keepers about it and they never were able to determine exactly what happened, I guess we will never know. It's much like our own tanks, we wake up one morning and have SPS RTN or find a fish belly up. It is sad but it happens :(

I don't know. It's sad and it sucks .. but sooner or later we all check out somehow, that's life. Quality of life is probably more important than quantity of life. It's a sad tragic accident that a goat met its end on a plaything intended for its amusement but what can you do, it's a freak accident: Look at things, learn from it, and move on as best you can.

Make no mistake fatal accidents happen in the wild all the time too. Let's not sugar coat the fact that life in the wild tends to be rather harsh and for many, not all that long..

I go to the zoo almost every week too, with a young family I am grateful for what good the zoos do effect, education and awareness being one of their functions. Not everyone will see wild elephants in their lifetimes, but seeing one for real trumps reading about them in books. “We only save what we love. We only love what we know. We only know what we have been taught.” Something like that anyhow.

I miss the conservatory though, as a psuedo orchid-geek and plants-in-general-geek that was my favourite part to visit. Hope its replacement will be as cool as they promise it will .. frustrating to have to wait so long though!!

I agree about the conservatory, that was always one of my favourite spots, all the way back to when I was a kid. There is just something nice about sitting down surrounded by flowers and butterflies on a cold winter day.

I was dissapointed when they took the cafateria out of there. I hope the rebuild will be just as nice.

FWIW, and if I'm not mistaken, the Vancouver zoo, of what little is left of it, is being/will be phased out as the animals slowly die off of old age. Eventually, all that will be left is the aquarium. Again,...if I'm not mistaken. I believe that is the plan.

Again...i've never seen an animal hang themselves in the WILD. That meaning without the encroachment of humans in one way or another. If you had no fence there the moose wasn't going to run into a tree and get tangled now was it :)

How many mountain goats fall off of cliff faces though :p

There's no denying that human encroachment has a tendency to make things worse, but accidents are accidents and they happen. I remember watching a documentary once about these elephants somewhere in SE Asia (forget where exactly) that would literally migrate along these narrow paths on these sheer cliffs. There were plenty of elephant skeletons at the bottom of the cliff. There may be plenty of things humans can be blamed for but this would be not be one (for a change!!). Wish I could remember more about the documentary, sorry.. I tried googling it but ran up short in the time I gave myself to find some corroborating site.

But all I really mean is that animals aren't so sagely wise to never have accidents in the wild. Life in the wild is harsh man. Eat or be eaten, etc...

Hey, I'm not knocking the gift shop girls intelligence simply because she works in a gift shop, but because it was just rather odd of her to say "it happens all the time" when goats hanging themselves in their enclosure clearly doesn't happen all the time. Like the person ahead of me posted, she was likely placating the visitor and then contacted someone. The remark itself probably doesn't sound that smart but I doubt she meant it with any harm. Zoos get all kinds of weird comments from visitors, the last time I was at the zoo another visitor was asking if the turles all piled up on the log together should be moved as they were "suffocating" the lower ones. The zookeeper answered very politely.

You are correct, unfortunately there is something called reality. Guess the horrible person didn't have to cut the fence either but I did. Then I had to fix it to keep the ranchers cows in. Guess I didn't have to but then somebody would have been mad at him because his cows were out on another persons property, or worse standing on the road for you and your kids to come along and hit with your vehicle.

I;m neither condemning you for the fence nor the rebuilding of said fence. I was only stating the rather obvious point that in general an animal isn't going to hang themselves in naturally occurring wilderness. That being said of course accidents happen, people try and use reason to figure out why, this does not work. It's like the people who build next to the ocean in tsunami country and then when the inevitable happens, cry out why why did this happen to me. It didn't it just happened, you were there...things do just happen. Poor goats and things are not exempt from it :) In retrospect i will praise you for rebuilding the fence and not having a helping hand in death by cow for the little kiddies and their parents out for a nice sunday drive through cowland :)

I was at the zoo a little after the sting rays died and I overheard the one zoo keeper telling someone that they thought someone had put something in the water but it was still being investigated.

What someone could have put in there to toast the tank??? I have no idea?? Sounds a little made up to me and with a lot of unknowns but that's what I heard... from my cousins, brothers, uncles ex girlfriends friend who knew someone who worked at the zoo a few years ago.

But the baby elephant was still around at that time and was really cute :)

I'm pretty sure I saw the elephants make that baby last time I was there, not so cute but pretty emasculating.

I would bet it was just the staff speculating based on not much at all. If i recall correctly, the tank was a touch tank... that is open for the visitors at all times. which means it is EXTREMELY vulnerable to foreign stuff getting thrown intentional or not. it also means that they probably have no idea what to test for, meaning that this might never be resolved. Personally I am completely against touch tanks unless there is an experienced staff member there at all times. you never know when lil 5 year old mikey is going to escape the unwary gaze of his parents and dump an entire bottle of soda and a chocolate bar in to feed the fishies.

back in the 70's i think it was, the Vancouver aquarium was almost shut down because some nutter poisoned most of the tanks with rat poison (cyanide). unfortunately, the reality is that it is not hard at all to crash a system or kill its inhabitants... some of us know that all too well.

I personally think this was a freak accident

Yes it was actually a touch tank, there was staff there at all times though letting groups of a specific amount of people in at a time and they all had to disinfect their hands before being able to stick their hands in the tank, so it was I suppose a fairly regimented affair to go and see them. I think personally they did take pretty good precautions when it came to the tank, it wasn't a free for all so I respect that they did try their best to make it as safe as possible. As for them getting more I hope it turns out alright, I'm a huge supporter of the Calgary Zoo and have quite a few friends that work there. I personally don't 100% agree with everything that's done but I trust the fact that they will only do the best they can to educate people about animals and habitats that are being lost, or that most people may never see in their lifetime.

I personally think they do good work and don't blame them for accidents that happen or things that are out of their control, unfortunatly it happens in life. I work for the humane society and if some of you have seen what I have seen you would appreciate what the Calgary Zoo does, it's the ignorant pet owners that are the one's people should be getting upset with.