Outrage as Zoo-Goers Kill Kangaroo That Won't Hop
It makes you wonder who the animals really are.
Patrons who are unable to see wildlife in its natural habitat can often get a small vision of the wonders of creation by taking a trip to a local zoo to see animals from far-off, exotic places.
If the animals are properly, humanely handled, zoos can be places where creatures are safe and humans can be educated. But when the humans behave like savages, things can go very wrong, very fast.
That’s apparently what happened at a zoo in Fuzhou, China, the capital of the Fujian Province in the southeastern part of the country, The New York Times reported Thursday.
Citing local media accounts, The Times reported that visitors to the zoo decided the zoo’s kangaroos were not being entertaining enough because they were not hopping around.
So the mob decided to start stoning the innocent animals until they started to behave like they do in the movies — and the results were horrifying.
“Some of us saw visitors throwing stones, and an attendant went out to stop it, but the visitors denied doing it,” a zoo veterinarian told the Shanghai-based website The Paper, according to The Times.
And by then, the damage had been done. A 12-year-old female kangaroo’s foot had been badly wounded.
“A veterinarian cleaned and treated the kangaroo’s injured foot,” The Times reported. “But a few days later, it died suddenly from profuse internal bleeding. The zoo believes the bleeding was caused by undetected injuries from the stones.”
And then came a quote that’s almost tragic.
“It showed that it was in deep pain,” the veterinarian told The Paper. “But it wasn’t clear where the pain was.”
But the incident, which apparently occurred in late February but was not reported until now, didn’t end with the 12-year-old kangaroo being attacked.
Another kangaroo, a 5-year-old, was also pelted with rocks by the mob because it too was not jumping. That animal apparently survived.
In the social media age, news of the incident sparked outrage worldwide.
OMG! I’d charge them with murder!
— me (@divinemissj0604) April 20, 2018
Where the hell were the staff? Security. This is truly vile.
— Lisa’sScribbles (@LScribbles) April 20, 2018
Everything about this story is incomprehensible. That kangaroo was obviously brighter than these people. Awful
— Dirty Harry Buzz (@Atlantabuzz81) April 20, 2018
Guess there are crazy and cruel people all over the planet! So sorry for all animals who suffer abuse 😡
— Joan Abbagnaro (@JoanJoanabby) April 20, 2018
Conservatives often mock liberals for their exaggerated sensitivity about animals — militant, self-righteous vegetarians, for instance, become caricatures with their constant bleating about “animal rights.” And their ignorance about sportsmen and hunters is profound.
But there’s a vast difference between understanding that animals are a part of the world that was created for human nourishment and committing wanton acts of the kind of ignorant cruelty witnessed at the Fuzhou zoo.
Mature human beings respect the universe as it was created and respect the beings that make it up. That’s why zoos exist in the first place, so human beings can be exposed to a beauty of the world they might not otherwise ever see.
According to The Times, the zoo is considering taking greater measures to protect the animals in its care from the humans who are supposed to be visiting to learn more about wildlife.
But the paper noted that some Chinese media outlets say steps like installing surveillance cameras don’t solve the real problem.
“Under cameras, many people will consciously rein in their behavior,” the Chinese newspaper Ningbo Daily editorialized, according to The Times.
“But there is still much work to be done to fundamentally change the small number of visitors to zoos who harm and abuse animals.”
That’s sadly true. And the fact that a sentence like that even has to be written makes you wonder who the real animals are.
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