Mind Scalpel

Substantially lowering the bar for the degree of care zoos owe their visitors, most recent news reports about the three guys who were attacked and/or eaten by a tiger at the San Francisco Zoo seem to focus on whether the three guys were taunting the tiger.

Can someone explain to me exactly how this is relevant to anything?

I mean, if the Zoo is trying to defend itself against accusations of negligence by saying “heck, they would have been perfectly safe if they hadn’t pissed off the tiger,” isn’t that kind of overwhelmed by the fact that these guys were attacked and/or eaten by the freaking tiger?

I feel that this relatively important point is being lost in the chattering inquiry about whether the guys had smoked marijuana, were drunk, or had stood on the railing outside the tiger pit making faces and yelling at it.

If I had known that the various moats, pits, chains, fences and cages in zoos were just for show and the psychological comfort of human visitors — you know, maybe gentle suggestions to the animals that they might want to consider avoiding mauling the human visitors, rather than, say, things that actually prevented them from mauling the human visitors – I can tell you that my zoo-visiting procedures would have been substantially different.

For example, I’d have been much more polite. No making funny faces at the gorilla! In fact, I’d just give him a quick glance, at most, and move along, in case he thinks, you know, something like “hey! This human’s all up in my face! Time to pull his arms off.”

I also would have brought a nice heavy-caliber rifle. That would make zoos more interesting! Very safari-like.

So now zoo visits are going to have a bit of a Jurassic Park-tour feel to them; people will practically have to sneak through the zoos, watching each other’s back, looking out for pumas plummeting onto them from overhanging tree limbs. I have to say, it will be a much more realistic look at what animals really are like in the wild; it might even eliminate the vague sense of pity that hits people when they see these creatures trapped in small cages (”no, see, Sally, the leopard’s only behind the fence because it wants to be - it could be savaging us in a second if it decided to.  Honest, we couldn’t get three steps before it ripped out our throats….say, Sally, don’t cry! Sally, really, I’m serious now — leopards can smell fear….Look out!“).

Come to think of it, I’d recommend leaving the kids at home.

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