Eye of the Tiger

My rant for this week about the media: the tiger who killed a person and wounded two others at the San Francisco zoo. To the families- well yes, I'm sorry that a tiger killed your loved one. And I'm sorry that a tiger wounded you guys. Lest we not forget that all in all, the tiger is still a wild animal.

The front pages of the newspaper today are really annoying. The media is now portraying this tiger as...as what? As the wild animal that it is? Making it out to be some killer, stalking it's 'prey', like the tiger has been laying in wait for that perfect person to show up so it can attack. This is absurd. It's a wild animal. Something went wrong. It snapped. End of story. But no, I guess we need to make up a whole story behind it. Whether or not it was taunted. Whether or not it has a human like brain that is sooo complicated, like that of a serial killer, who has been plotting this out for months. Are we kidding here? It's really a tad nauseating.

It makes me sad that the tiger was killed. I understand why of course that had to happen. But I'm always on the side of the animal, I can't help it. We think that because an animal has been kept in captivity that it should somehow forget it's natural instincts. That suddenly it should just behave like a good little boy or girl. This is where the debate comes in of nurture vs. nature.

Case in point, I went to Aruba several years ago with my then boyfriend. In the center of this outdoor mall was this huge glass enclosement where they kept a tiger. I believe her name was Tess or Tessa. You could watch Tess for hours through the glass and even better, you could actually pay to go into this enclosure and take a picture with Tess. Of course while taking the picture, Tess was shackled with big chains on every limb, but who notices really? You're taking a picture with a tiger right? The whole scene made me really sad. This tiger was totally alone, had no other tigers that I could tell to interact with. She was enclosed in this pit right across from the hotel I was staying at, so we went there quite a few times.

I remember being sad about it and talking to my ex about it. He brought up a good point. He said that while it was sort of terrible, the other option was that Tess could have been out in the wild and killed already. So in order to live and keep a species alive, this is what we do. It's a catch 22. No one wins really. You could say the animal wins because they get to live but is that really how they should be living? Repressing and surpressing all their natural instincts?

We expect that a caged animal should eventually forget what it is and somehow become 'human'. Think again. This shit happens. It's no one's fault but mother nature. If a tiger out in the wild, let's say in Africa, attacked and killed someone, that would be ok because it wasn't in a zoo right? It wouldn't get nearly this much media attention. It would be a sad story but not the law and order episode it has turned into. It really is just making me sick. It is a tragedy on many levels. The people who were hurt and the tiger that was now killed. Doesn't that now defeat the purpose of propagating the species in captivity?

What we need to remember is this: it's pleasant and quaint and cute to go to a zoo and see animals up close and personal. However, we still need to keep in mind that they are, in fact, animals.

Another case in point: I went to the Bronx Zoo two years ago in the fall. Beautiful fall day, could not get more perfect. I hadn't been to the Bronx zoo since childhood. I was fascinated by every animal I encountered. And the tiger habitat there is NO JOKE. It's beautiful and scary all at once.

I came across the lions, out there in the distance of their little pen. They looked beautiful and majestic out there. All of a sudden, the male started roaring. That was the first time I had ever heard a real, actual lion roaring in front of me. It was again, beautiful yet terrifying. It reminded me that hey, I was on his turf and I best watch my step.

There is no invisible line separating any given animal from us at any zoo. No force field. The line is how they are raised (nurture) versus how much of their nature they have surprssed. At any given time, that natural instinct can take hold and all hell can break loose. And that's what I believe happened here. It's as much a privilege for us to be able to go to a zoo as it is for the animals to be there.

And that's my piece. Amen.