They are locked up and far removed from their natural habitats; they are kept on display just so people can watch them and find entertainment in them. You would think these wild animals would be safe from people who want to kill them, but there are trigger-happy misguided zoo officials who kill animals without a good reason.
On May 21, 2016, a deranged man entered a lion’s den in the Santiago Metropolitan Zoo in Chile, South America, trying to commit suicide. An incompetent zoo official shot two lions to death trying to save the man who was clearly provoking the animals. The zoo’s protocol was to save human lives over animal lives no matter who was at fault, and this practice violates the rights of all animals everywhere.
The zoo officials disregarded the fact that the lions were being held captive and the intruder deliberately entered the lion’s den and was the instigator of the confrontation. Just because this foolhardy person wanted lions to kill him, two endangered animals were killed for no good reason. Killing these lions was a heinous crime against nature.
In another case, on May 28, 2016, in the Cincinnati Zoo, an endangered gorilla was deliberately shot and killed by a trigger-happy zoo official. The gorilla had done nothing wrong. A disorderly boy had entered the enclosure where the gorilla was. The zoo official panicked and shot the gorilla before there was any aggressive behavior by the gorilla. There was no justification to kill this gorilla; the gorilla never injured the boy, and it could have been tranquilized.
The Cincinnati Zoo officials have tried to defend their killing of an endangered animal, but there is no defense for negligence and misconduct. These so-called zoo officials are responsible in large part for the killing of the gorilla. The three-foot-high barrier that was supposed to keep people from entering the gorilla’s enclosure could not even keep out a three-year-old boy.
The parents of the disorderly boy are also to blame for the killing of the gorilla and should be held accountable. No responsible parent lets a three-year-old toddler climb a three-foot-high barrier and fall into a gorilla enclosure. This is gross negligence that cannot be excused.
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The zoo got together some so-called experts on animal behavior and gave a lot of excuses for killing the gorilla. They were trying to make out that they had to kill the gorilla to save the boy, but even they admit that the gorilla was not trying to kill the boy. The panicky zoo official who shot the gorilla should have tranquilized it.
It is obvious that there is a “cover-up” by the authorities to excuse their negligence and mismanagement. If the zoo had installed the right kind of barrier around the gorilla’s enclosure, the tragedy would not have happened. There was a great injustice perpetrated against an innocent animal that had done no wrong. How can weak-minded people think they can cover-up all of their obvious mistakes?
These killings of wild animals in zoos are a blatant reminder that wild animals should not be in zoos in the first place; they should roam free in their natural habitat. Instead of zoos, people should establish natural preserves for wild animals.
The reason zoos exist comes from the false religious beliefs that man is “godlier” than other animals and that he has the right to take away the rights of all the other animals. With this belief, man has caged wild animals for his own entertainment and has violated the fundamental rights of all members of the animal kingdom.
The incompetent zoo officials who killed endangered animals were practicing the age-old philosophy that all wild animals are dispensable and that the lives of people are precious. In reality, all lives are equally precious, including both man and beast. The history of humanity has proven that mankind, Homo sapiens, is the most destructive species of the animal kingdom that has ever inhabited the earth. It is only the falsehood of certain religious beliefs that has caused the majority of people to believe mankind is better and godlier than all of the other animals.
--Marlin O. Wallace |