We were browsing tv and saw a clip on the evening news about a story in which a bear just casually strolled into a local hospital and was meandering down a hallway when he was discovered. Of course a police officer whipped out his gun and shot the poor thing.
"No one was hurt, thank God," the newscaster said. Ummm… did you forget about the bear?
The 350 black bear walked into the emergency room Tuesday night, wandering the halls, eventually making it's way into an office, where it was locked inside by a security guard. Almost an hour later a sheriff's deputy, acting on the orders of a game warden, shot the animal.
The game warden decided the bear should be killed rathen than tranquilized, to protect everyone in the hospital. This decision is still receiving criticism.
The Department of Game stands by the decision to shoot the bear. They say in that situation that was the safest thing that could've been done. "Sometimes there are other considerations that have to be made on the scene and public safety has got to be a higher priority in that case than that individual animal," says Mr. Bowman with the department.
Bowman says the game warden who responded to the call considered tranquilizing the bear, but the drugs wouldn't have taken effect for 10 to 15 minutes and during that time the nearly 350 pound animal could've broken out of the office and become aggressive.
"The question of what's that bear gonna do…how's that bear going to react and what kind of damage and risk to people might there be if that route would've been chosen," says Bowman.
Bowman also says the ideal situation would've been to tranquilize the bear and take it back to the wilderness…but since the game warden had the safety of dozens of people to consider, he had to do what was best for patients, staff and visitors.
Couldn't someone have thought of a better way to deal with this? It was in there for an hour and they didn't think that it should live for 10 more minutes until a tranquilizer kicked in? They more they tried to defend their decision the more they came off as total jackasses.
So then we hear about the tiger that got shot in Florida just the other day. Same thing. Someone in charge of protecting animals instead kills one. Why were they chasing this thing around in the first place? Where were the experts? They'd been searching for the tiger for 24 hours – isn't that enough time to fly someone in from anywhere in the world?
The real question is – did they truly need an expert or just some common sense? Someone could have captured the tiger without killing it. Where were the stun-guns? Who the hell was in charge of this disaster?
After listening to the various news reports it was obvious that the only thing the guy who shot the tiger was sorry about was that he couldn't take Bobo's dead body home and mount it on a wall. A comment was made – in reference to both the bear and tiger shooting – "Did they feel the need to whip their dicks out and show everybody how big they are, too?" Truly. Brawn does not equal intelligence.
No one can get their story straight. An ABC News article from Reuters says the tiger attacked the officer and they had "no choice but to kill it". However, most articles, including one from the BBC and another from a local Florida news channel, say that the tiger simply moved towards the officer who immediately took the opportunity to shoot it.
However, these articles also say that the search party had "no choice but to use lethal fire", although it was noted that they had hoped to use a tranquilizer dart.
Sooooo…. that begs the question: Was the tranquilizer gun jammed? Lost? Up someone's ass?
According to their own statements they weren't ready to use it yet, as in the gun wasn't ready or Captain Dinky forgot how to load it. They were hunting for a 600-pound tiger and yet they weren't prepared to stun the Easter Bunny should it have jumped out of the bushes. I believe a pat on the back is in order… Good job, good job!
To top it off I came across an article on CNN in which the spokesman for Florida's Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission said that his agency will be investigating the tiger's escape. Seems they jumped right over the hurdle of investigating methods for non-lethal animal capture and have gotten busy looking for a way to levy a huge fine on the tiger's owner.
I did a search online and found a very discouraging number of similar events. True, in some cases the animal was living captive in a non-native area and had escaped. But that's a whole other debate – possession of wild animals as pets. But is it not common sense that the bigger our cities and towns get the more likely it is that we are intruding into wild-animal areas?
Regardless of how the animal comes to be on our streets and in our backyards, shouldn't we have a better protocol for handling it? Why is it that police departments can order every new bullet-proof vest that comes on the market and drive department-issued sports cars but they can't inconvenience themselves with a simple stun-gun?
Occasionally the animals aren't kind enough to appear in our backyard, but in a protected environment. That means we have to take time out of our day to go find them. Ah, but when there's a will there's always a way! Sometimes, if we're really lucky, we can find a whole group of animals, pre-collected ever so conveniently for us!
A couple drunk US soldiers thought it would be fun to play with rare animals at a party. They were in an Iraqi zoo and decided to antagonize the tigers, so they climbed into the exhibit. They taunted the tigers and assaulted them physically.
Surprise, surprise – one guy got his arm ripped off. You'll find no sympathy here! But of course the tiger, who was in the zoo precisely for the reason that it needed protection because it was rare, was shot dead. Charming, no?
How intelligent do you have to be to understand that you shouldn't fuck with wild animals that have sharp teeth and claws? How emotionally disturbed must you be to torture rare animals under protection? Seriously, these are the folks representing our country? With no common sense or respect for life whatsoever?
Makes you wonder: are the bars around the exhibits at zoos there to protect us from the animals, or the animals from us?
