Networks Cover Gorilla Death 54 Times More Than Chicago Shootings

a reply to: SaturnFX

The other issue is, after having worked for a vet clinic in high school, you cannot predict how an animal will react to tranquilizer. Sometimes, there is a short while before they go under where they simply go berserk because they see things (hallucinate). If that had happened while he was around that little boy ... well ... that kid is many times less durable than another gorilla would be and much less able to get away.

I had a Samoyed do this to me. It was freaky. One minute the animal is quiet and seems to be slumping over, the next it turns into your worst nightmare of a vicious attack dog trying to rip out your throat, and then it abruptly keels over.

originally posted by: ketsuko
a reply to: MisterSpock

There are two sides to that.

People care about what they can directly experience and see. This is one of the most important impacts of a zoo. You get to see animals up close and really see them. Wildlife docs on TV don't have the same impact or directness as getting to really look a gorilla or giraffe or lion in the eyes does, to really see and experience that animal and understand it lives and breathes same as you.

It would be interesting to me to see just how many who agitate against zoos today got their start in loving animals so much in no small part because they went to those same zoos as small children.

Zoos for things like sentient gorillas should be free range with many acres and if people want to see them, they go in a protected on track bubble like they do in safari zoo experiences.

I remember when I was a kid, there was a gorilla at the zoo in my hometown. his entire life was in a small cell like cage where it would just lay down as kids would beat on the glass to try and get it to do something.
Gorillas are intelligent beings with long memories, emotions, ability to communicate semi complex ideas, etc.

If people need to look at something in order to give a crap, then the second they look away, they will stop caring anyhow, so who cares what they need. conceptually should be enough. you shouldn't imprison thinking, sentient animals unless it is to save them from something (liberated lifelong circus gorilla for instance.) and if they must be imprisoned, make it a sprawling multi-acre land with just a couple enclosed walkways for humans to view.

a reply to: SaturnFX

MOst modern zoos are going to more of the free range habitat models. It does allow for incidents like this one where the more open barriers allow kids to fall in when their parents dangle them, but plenty of times the habitat is constructed with the barriers in place in a more hidden way, more room to roam, and the guests placed behind glass and in tunnels unless we are talking about the indoor side of the exhibit.

Very few zoos are staying with the cage model as time and resources allow.

As for your last contention, we are constantly taught that what we see on TV isn't real. So, yes, it does sometimes take that experience of actually seeing to wake a person up to the reality. I worked with inner city kids. They needed to see in person. TV was not enough. They were coming from experience impoverished backgrounds with little in the way of print or educational media or wide experience outside their own confined neighborhood reality in most cases.

A zoo is a world apart and opens new doors.

originally posted by: ketsuko
a reply to: SaturnFX

The other issue is, after having worked for a vet clinic in high school, you cannot predict how an animal will react to tranquilizer. Sometimes, there is a short while before they go under where they simply go berserk because they see things (hallucinate). If that had happened while he was around that little boy ... well ... that kid is many times less durable than another gorilla would be and much less able to get away.

I had a Samoyed do this to me. It was freaky. One minute the animal is quiet and seems to be slumping over, the next it turns into your worst nightmare of a vicious attack dog trying to rip out your throat, and then it abruptly keels over.

Yeah, tranqs werent an option. besides..even if it worked almost immediately, it was in the water. woulda drown and potentially fell on the kid, taking him out also.
what a unfortunate mess. I trust the zoo's call. the armchair quarterbacks are understandably upset, but the call was the right one.
But..its cool the nation, and world, can become this upset over the loss of a gorilla..if this happened 100 years ago, the only discussion would be how to buy the corpse of the ape to stuff it in a spooky pose and have in the trophey room.

a reply to: SaturnFX

This just seems to be the latest Cecil the Lion.

a reply to: xuenchen

As a person who's VERY familiar with the Chicagoland area, I've said all along that the city is going to demolish all previous shooting/murder records this calendar year. With the mild winter, now paired with warm/hot weather rolling in, we will begin to see spikes every weekend in shootings/murders. I dread 4th of July weekend... That weekend the shootings total may eclipse 200-300 shootings.... The city needs the national guard, but I believe the State would need to pay for that, and the state of Illinois is BROKE... The city/state is a mess, and it's crazy how people care more about a Gorilla over this growing issue right in our countries backyard...

a reply to: jhn7537

Yup, you know it.

It's not good around here at all.

I'm just waiting for round 2 from the Lamestream media:

-Baby pictures of the Gorilla so people can go awwwwww!!!!
-Vilified pictures of the guy that shot it
-People vandalizing the zoo buildings and the home of the shooter
-Publishing trumped up charges to the shooter
-Pictures of the shooters wife all beaten up

a reply to: xuenchen

Or the fact that a white nationalists movement is forming around trump.

originally posted by: Looselungjones2
a reply to: xuenchen

Or the fact that a white nationalists movement is forming around trump.

Well maybe so ....

Killing a gorilla to save a ‘white boy’ was a ‘racist’ move, according to outcry

very controversial.

originally posted by: Hazardous1408
Did any of you see how viscously that gorilla was dragging the boy through the water...

I'd have shot him as well.



I don't get the outrage.

Humans are not almost extinct.

I'm sure the earth would rather lose some stupid kid to some stupid parents than an almost extinct animal.

a reply to: xuenchen

its amazing the hypocricy - none of the " news organisations " reporting this ` fact ` :

ie - the wingnuts screaming that the " MSM " are " ignoring " chicago shootings

didnt actually publish a story on the memorial weekend chicago shootings themselves

thats odd [ sacrasm off / ]

a reply to: xuenchen

The Gorilla is a federally protected endangered species. Humans aren't and as such are expendable. Its now looking as the Feds may sue the Zoo and prosecute the shooter. They should prosecute and incarcerate the parents as well! Like a life sentence!

The Chicago shootings aren't news. They're a predictable daily experience like........rain.

originally posted by: FaunaOrFlora
rather lose some stupid kid to some stupid parents

I agree
kys
write a note to your parents calling them stupid beforehand though..surely they will understand.

a reply to: FaunaOrFlora

You're sick.

If it's a human beings life vs. a Gorillas - sorry but there's no situation where the Gorilla wins out. Maybe if the human was a known serial killer or something, but it wasn't, it was a baby that literally did nothing wrong.

Animals are great, love them, can't get enough of them, but they're not human.

Seriously seek help.

a reply to: Bennyzilla

I call it "the Darwin award".

Stupid enough to dangle your kid over any zoo enclosure and you win by losing said kid.

Don't like it? Too bad.

a reply to: FaunaOrFlora

How is that the kids fault in any way?

originally posted by: Bennyzilla
a reply to: FaunaOrFlora

How is that the kids fault in any way?

How is it the Gorilla's?

originally posted by: FaunaOrFlora
a reply to: Bennyzilla

I call it "the Darwin award".

Stupid enough to dangle your kid over any zoo enclosure and you win by losing said kid.

Don't like it? Too bad.

who dangled what?
..what are you even on about?
Do you even know what you are talking about?

Dude, you are trying to make a case that stupid people should die...yet you are showing you are the stupid one here.
so...
follow your philosophy.

a reply to: SaturnFX

I didn't mean this instance per se (but still fits) as the mom should have been watching her children.

I was actually thinking of the boy killed at the Pittsburgh zoo by the wild African dogs a year or two ago.

There are many other instances where parents deserved this award at zoos.