Enough is enough...the Calgary Zoo needs

[EmilyB]

Originally Posted by Treebeard

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

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

[lorenz0]

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

found the ctv news video

[Keri]

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.

[ElGuappo]

Originally Posted by Keri

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

The wild.

.

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

[Pan]

Originally Posted by ElGuappo

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.

[justinl]

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.

[hillbillyreefer]

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.

[Keri]

Originally Posted by 'Ol Nobodaddy

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

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.