Unfortunately this photo doesn't enlarge, but if you look close you will see the net added to the lower 3/4's of this barred exhibit. It was probably used for other species of animals before the Kangaroo. You will note the level and closeness of the visiting children. I wonder how may young lips were "nihontoed" off by the middle nail on the Roo's hind foot before the net was added, and I wonder how affective it really was.
Friday, December 5, 2008
Vintage zoo safety features
Posted by
Wade G. Burck
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4 comments:
Wade, what is surprising to me is that there is no perimeter fencing, and the patrons can walk right up to the enclosure!
Mary Ann
Mary Ann,
Very common in old zoo exhibits. That used to be the mentality. Get up as close as you can with your face pressed against the enclosure. Obviously animals couldn't be appreciated as nature intended, from a distance.
Wade
In defense of the indefensible. Once upon a time we believed that if anybody dumb enough to get too close to dangerous animals, or foolish enough to allow their children to take that risk actually got hurt...they were to blame. This is where I like to trot out my story about the teenager whom I found with his arm inside a tiger cage in the outdoor exhibit area of the old cat house at the Bronx Zoo. (He climbed a three rail barrier to get a couple feet closer. He'd been waving a windbreaker at the cat, which quickly took it away from him. He thought if only he could reach in a bit further, he could snatch it back. The saddest thing about that kind of dumb is that -- as was the case in San Francisco last year -- if the tiger acts like a tiger it'll end up dead.
Ultimately it's easier to put up barriers than it is to police human stupidity. But it bothers me that stupid has become a legitimate excuse. There was a study published last month on snakebite mortalities worldwide. When I was a kid the number generally cited was around 30,000 deaths mostly in India, parts of Africa, and Latin America. Thirty plus years later health care has improved, more people have shoes, and education is better. You would think the idea that walking around barefoot at night has some risk might have caught on. It hasn't. There were 11,000 deaths from snakebite in India last year, 20,000 confirmed elsewhere, and researchers think the total number of mortalities could be as high as 90,000. Perhaps dangerous animals are a tool used by nature to select against unthinking apes.
Growing up on a circus that didn't have perimeter fence (we did however use a guard rope in some locals where the family trees all had same root) I am constantly shocked, and somehow, still irritated when people try to get up to any animal on a circus lot. I have made it my business to "know" when an animal is going to hurt someone, and yet I am still not 100% accurate (and honestly, what fun would that be? LOL)I am doing everything to avoid raising a child that does stupid things with animals. I am only five years into the process, so it is yet to be determined success or failure. I will however guarantee that my daughter can tell you exactly why you shouldn't put your face by any animal with teeth, never try to grab a strange animal and restrain it, and never ever get within 20 ft of an elephant or horse in the backyard without me holding her hand. I doubt she will become an animal trainer as a career, but she will not be the one hopping fences to get chewed on by a polar bear either,,,lol
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