Hey there, here comes yet another anger fueled rant about something that really bothers me on a deep, emotional level.  Hi, I’m Adam Rondeau, and I am here to say I think zoos are a terrible thing to exist.  I don’t mean to sound like a bleeding heart or a hypersensitive granola cruncher by this rant, just want to put this thought out there and see what other think.

Nature has a way of doing things, and it works.  It works because when is doesn’t work, it adapts to make it work.  Nature has a way of doing things that we humans feel we are bigger than, feel like we can control and own, but we can’t.  I am not sure where this human ego derives itself from, as we are nothing more than a product of nature, so why do we think that we can control what literally creates us?  In particular though, I have a real issue with zoos.  I mean just the whole thing in general, and this goes for aquariums as well.  Basically, to sum the concept up, we take wild creatures who have done nothing wrong, capture them, transport them to a far away destination where a small pen awaits them, then we put them in it so people can come by and selfie with an exotic creature for our own horrendous entertainment.  Which, the fact that watching an animal in a habitat that isn’t its natural is pathetic on our part.  You want to see a tiger, travel to an exotic jungle and attempt to find one, the whole adventure will surely be an experience you’ll never forget.  You want to see an killer whale do ya?  Find a boating venture that will be happy to take you out a few times and hope you see one acting in its natural ways.  But to think that taking creatures who live in these wild environments would be held in captivity for nothing more than our own entertainment is ludicrous!  Dolphins are probably more intelligent then 40% of the human beings on this planet, so why the hell do we put them in a small tank, make them do back flips for tuna treats while some stupid trainer stands on their snout in front of an audience?  (One time someone said “if they were so smart they wouldn’t get caught” so I threw a net over him and said “shut up stupid”)  Really thought, my response was just to put my hands over my face and sigh to myself, because that statement (which was said with 100% conviction at that time) proves my point exactly.

This tirade of my loathing of captivity of these animals was all sparked by a story I read today regarding a woman at a zoo in Florida who was nicknamed the “tiger whisperer”.  This lady was, as you probably guessed, a tiger trainer at the zoo.  Well, one faithful day she went into work expecting business as usual, but forgetting that the tiger has no such thing as “usual” other than its instinct, which again, we humans ignorantly feel we can control.  So, she goes to work and is preparing for her day when her tiger companion decides to act upon its natural instincts, which believe it or not, tell the tiger that we humans are food.  So it attacked her and she died due to the injuries sustained from the attack.  What enrages me most is that when animals do things like this, we blame the animal, and in a majority of the cases, we end up putting the animal down under some bulls*** argument that it’s “aggressive” or “dangerous”.  NO!  No it’s not, it’s a tiger!  It’s a wild, 600+ pound apex predator that hunts like no ones business.  Attacking prey (which we humans are to a tiger) is what tigers do, so how in the hell are we shocked when the tiger follows its instincts?  Why do we feel that we can justifiable kill a tiger who acted upon said instincts?  Here’s an idea, if there were no zoos, if we didn’t hold this majestic cat in a small cage and have idiots come by annoying it, tapping on the cage, yelling at it, flash photoing it, maybe it wouldn’t have attacked a human trying to feed it because there would be no tiger for us to have to feed because it would be doing what it does very well…hunting!

So next time you go on a trip somewhere and you notice a zoo, I am not saying you need to grab a picket sign and your tie-dyed tee shirt and protest the place, but consider what the zoo really is.  Is buying a ticket and supporting what is happening there really something you want to do?  I, personally don’t, and I find it repulsive that we find amusement in such a place.  But to each their own I suppose.

– Adam Rondeau (Facebook I guess, or don’t)