The Zoo - Or, No, I Didn't Hit Her (but I really wanted to...)

Note: I wrote this under the influence of lots of rage..

Dear Ajjuma Who Was Taunting The Baboons With A *WRAPPED* Piece Of Candy,

You are a terrible human being.

Actually, it's very unfair of me to address this solely to you, but you do represent everything that made me die more-than-a-little on the inside Saturday.

Let me pause to paint a word picture: The animals are in a cage. There is a big sign that says in MULTIPLE languages not to feed the animals. There are people around you throwing crackers and chips to the various ape species and laughing as they catch them. That, in itself, it completely despicable. But you took it three steps in the worst possible direction. First, you had candy - a substance that is made completely out of sugar and also completely unnatural, which means that a baboon's digestive system probably won't handle it well. Second, it was WRAPPED. How the hell was that animal supposed to figure it out? I think the only worse thing than giving it straight sugar is giving it something plastic wrapped to either choke on or, worse, cut up it's insides. Third, you were using the candy to taunt it into doing a trick. You wanted the baboon to spin around. The smaller one clinging to the cage beneath the alpha male you were taunting actually knew this trick and was spinning in circles desperate to get the treat instead. The baboon naturally became frustrated and started screaming and growling at you. Your reaction to all of this was to laugh, hold the candy out further, and continue to taunt it.

In America, you would have been arrested. In America, I would have probably found a zoo worker and had you removed (telling you to stop wouldn't have stopped as you probably would have yelled back at me and went back to taunting the animals as soon as I walked away). Not sure if you realize this, but your behavior is an example of why animals in Asain zoos are stressed beyond all belief. The animals are there to be observed in a safe environment, not taunted. These are animals. They don't have an advanced frontal lobe that allows them to just forget it and calm down. No, he's now enraged. As he has a tiny cage and can't run off the anger, he will react with violence. He'll probably end up attacking one of the other baboons - possibly the newborn that is running around in his excited baby exploration.

Actually, if you were the first person I saw feeding the animals, I probably would have yelled at you. But I was slowly dropped into this well of completely irresponsible animal behavior. It started with the woman who was throwing carrots to the zebras. I was shocked - but I wondered if maybe this was something the zoo allowed since it was just carrots. Wasn't happy with the way her kid was throwing the carrot pieces at the zebras, instead of to them. Then I saw the guy giving those flavor-less animal crackers to the llamas (yes, I see the irony). When he first approached them, he reached out like he was going to pet them, and I wanted to warn him because those animals bite - but I wasn't sure how to communicate that (yay language barriers), and then he started feeding it the crackers. I walked away. I couldn't believe it. Then I saw YOU with the candy at the baboon cage.

Perhaps I have too high of an expectation as to how animals should be treated in captivity. My mom and I didn't own dogs until we had a giant place for them to run around. My dad is a wildlife biologist. Most of my experience with zoos has involved the National Zoo in Washington, DC - probably the most animal-friendly facility in America. But this whole thing was just wrong. I'm so glad that I didn't have to pay an entrance fee because I would have demanded my money back as to not give any sort of financial support to this place.

In short: if you're from a country that has strict animal cruelty laws, don't go to zoos here.