Reply #56: My hat is off to you for going into such a career. [View All]

[Touchdown]

Only a few of us have the drive to pursue what we really love as a job. I hope you succeed.

Aside from the trainer's death, another tragedy lost in this is that we have gotten the majority of our knowledge of nature and the animal kingdom by observing and interacting with other species in zoos, theme and marine parks. Trainers, zoo keepers, park rangers and others who work at these places all have a vast education, and we learn from not only them, but from observing the animals up close. We even learned why Sigfried was grabbed by his tiger... that she was startled by a noise from the audience, and she was trying to protect him from it by grabbing him on the back of the neck (like all cats do with their young) to move him to safety. She didn't know he would be hurt. Anheuser Busch, the owners of Sea World and Busch Gardens animal parks, are held in high esteem for the attention and humane treatment of the animals in their care. They have state of the art vet clinics on every site that can handle almost any kind of illness/injury to any animal they have, no matter how big. Municipal Zoos would kill to have the resources AB has.

Is it wrong to hold animals captive? I don't have the answer to that. But, if we decided long ago that it is, then we'd be less knowledgeable about the world around us because of it.

Marlon Perkins, from Wild Kingdom, was known to stage fights between animals, and even wrestle them himself for entertainment (and he should be rightly criticized for it), but he was on every week, and taught us about the world we live in. Jacques Cousteau may have been a much better example of a benign observer, but even he wasn't guilt free of doing some damage to an animal from time to time. Even the Crocodile Hunter taught us about animals. Every time a Discovery or Disney Nature film is being shot, humans are invading a natural habitat to catch the action, in an effort to bring us knowledge about our world in a way that engages us (film/entertainment or "trick shows"), so we learn easier.

I can see the argument for not holding animals captive, but I can also see