Zoo visit

[TylerDurden]

I recently went on a night-time tour of a local zoo and was told about how the animals were fed on largely unprocessed foods. I got the impression that they didn't care much as to whether the meat fed to the animals was grassfed- or wild game meats, but they didn't seem to cook or process their foods like most American zoos apparently do. They also claimed that when they fed prefrozen fish to their seals and other marine mammals, that they would give them artificial vitamin shots, every now and then, because they said that freezing lowered the vitamin-levels of the fish.  I wasn't too impressed at their mention that they castrated animals which they could't separate into different cages, but at least they made a strenuous effort to make their environments more like what these animals would experience in the wild. They also seem to clamp down on the ghastly business of the public feeding the animals on junk-foods like sweets.

[CitrusHigh]

That must have been so much fun!

When I was a member of the minnesota zoo, I would go during the times of the year when it was totally dead and take myself on private tours! It was super sweet.

One time my friend Tim and I were checking out the Amur tigers, and no one was around so we would be able to get right up to the fence where you could literally touch the tigers if you were so inclined (I was not, though I would have liked to!) Anyway, tim and I were having a famous time when I got the bright idea to take a photo of him with the tiger, sweet! So I step away from the fence (which is abut 18 ft high maybe? chain-link fence inverted towards the tigers at the top) So of course tim turns his back on the tigers to pose for me! Well he had no sooner done that then the tiger ran at the fence and began to climb, she got so high in the air that the tip of her tail was dangling at our eye level. I'm like Tim, fuck that, lets goOoo! If she had kept going I'm of the opinion she totally could have scaled it and had her way with us. She calmed down though as soon as Tim gave her his front. I also had a special relationship with these tigers because I would be there on most of my off work days, so 3-4 days a week and I could get them to play with me, running back and forth and jumping synchronously. They were two females, 3 yrs old at the time bottle raised.

Our zoo at least here does a pretty good job of providing native looking habitat and a native diet of raw foods, not ideal foods, but close.

[Techydude]

If I were trapped in a cage or a place and fed and not eat for myself and had my balls cut off i'd be pretty pissed off and miserable.

We are animals. We are treating other animals badly. Zoos are hell. I never want to go to one again.

[CitrusHigh]

yeah I don't know Techy. I agree with the butchery part, that's not kosher. But I'm on the fence about them when they are well fed with comfy living conditions. Ideally yes, animals would be free to come and go as they please and those interested in hanging around could and those wanting to move on could as well, but right now that isn't the world we live in, and for this one, I can think of a lot worse things to be happening. No excuse for the mutilation though, that is for certain!

I'm much more ok with the ideas of large scale enclosures similar to those like you see in FL where you can drive through animals living with relative mobility, the kind where  there is enough space that on a tour there's the possibility of not even seeing these animals.

More properly though, these should be farms, and the animals should be part of the community producing foods and renewing the land with their activities. There's no reason that they can't provide entertainment, food, fertilizer, labor, and companionship all at the same time. That is what living a holistic life is about and that is integral to free thought, or learning how to think.

There's no reason that tiger meat should be any different than cow meat, except that society treats them differently (your notions of what is safe to eat, aside.) Taking that logic to its conclusion, human meat is not really different either, unless you're to practice species prejudice, which I personally don't agree with at this point.

I have a deep respect, appreciation and love for everything, including what we refer to as inanimate, such as minerals and other elemental substances. I believe it's all made of love, everything, and you can experience that and be a part of it if you want to. Hopefully that puts the above words in their proper light!