I really tried to stop celebrating my birthday six years ago at age 70, but the well-wishes keep right on coming, this year numbering in the hundreds. So, in spite of my reluctance to aging, thanks a million to all of my dear friends for thinking of me on April 20th.
Save the Tiger — From Us
While I normally don’t care to hear about any living creature being harmed, I do have to make exceptions for zookeepers injured while carrying out their duties as prison guards. Yes, that’s what animals kept in zoos are: prisoners that have committed no crime yet are being held against their will simply because humans have the power to do so. Isn’t the dominion we have over domesticated animals enough?
It’s grossly and perversely unfair to hold animals under such conditions and it led to a zookeeper being mauled by Sumatran tiger at the Topeka Zoo around 9:30am on Saturday. The tiger was simply doing what it was supposed to do, which was to attack.
We try to justify our beastly behavior toward other living creatures by calling “feral” animals by the name of “wild” animals, since “wild” is a pejorative that connotes danger, and therefore gives us the tacit approval we need for locking them up, usually for life, or in some cases killing them.
I have no problem with large, protected animal sanctuaries where humans can drive through and take photos of animals in their natural habitat. But there is something sick about viewing these magnificent creatures pacing back and forth in enclosures, trying to figure how to get the hell out of their cages and back to where nature intended for them to be.
The new lie is that we’re keeping these animals in cages to protect the species. But the species are endangered because man has encroached on their habitat and if we really wanted to protect them we would establish more sanctuaries and provide the funding to protect the areas from poachers.
I certainly hope and pray that the injured zookeeper, the mother of a 3-year-old, makes a complete recovery from her wounds, and I also hope and pray that she, at last, sees the errors of her ways and finds an honest profession.
From CoolCleveland correspondent Mansfield B. Frazier mansfieldfATgmail.com. Frazier’s From Behind The Wall: Commentary on Crime, Punishment, Race and the Underclass by a Prison Inmate is available in hardback. Snag your copy and have it signed by the author at http://NeighborhoodSolutionsInc.
One Response to “MANSFIELD: Thanks!”
Lydia Alphabet
Wow and another Wow!!! I’ve known you for a few years and from this article, I see you do have feelings!! Who’d a thought!!
And Thank You for this article: animals can’t express their plight.
I don’t go to the zoo because it hurts me deeply to see magnificent creatures locked up looking back at me and their not knowing what it means to be free.
Subconsciously, it probably hurts because my ancestors were also in their shoes.
Keep up the exceptional articles Mansfield.