Thought of the Day

I recently decided never to go to a zoo again. The last time I went to a zoo was in the fall of 2008, when I went to the National Zoo in Washington, DC to do a photography project for school. I've always felt conflicted when visiting the zoo, at least since I was old enough to develop a sense of morality. On one hand, I'm fascinated by animals and enjoy the opportunity to observe them. On the other, I'm disgusted by the idea of kidnapping them from their natural environment and putting them in a small enclosure to be gawked at daily by members of a self-important species. When I used to visit the zoo, I would always daydream about a dangerous animal escaping, like a lion, gorilla, bear, or crocodile, and how I would run like hell to the nearest safe haven, throwing yuppies and fat children to the ground behind me in hopes of serving up an easy meal for the rampaging critter. I root for the animals to escape, it's just unfortunate they end up being shot or euthanized for their insubordination. How can you punish a wild animal for following its instincts? We don't kill prisoners for escaping from jail, we put them back and usually make them serve more time. In most cases, we don't kill people for committing murder, so why kill an animal for escaping its zoo habitat and decapitating a few sluggish patrons? It violates nature's laws. Things like that are supposed to happen to exploit weak evolutionary traits and keep the process of adaptation moving forward. I was damn happy when that tiger escaped in the San Francisco Zoo and killed that teenager. Of course, the police shoot and kill the tiger as if it's his fault. The kid's blood alcohol level was 0.16 and he had marijuana in his system, and he gets seen as the victim. Bullshit. The tiger saw a drunk, stoned, delicious looking teenager on the other side of the wall and capitalized on an easy target. That's nature's way of balancing things out and suggesting maybe animals don't belong in captivity. The tiger should've been rewarded with raw steak, not shot to death and vilified in the media. People are jackasses.