The Price of Life...

The following is a not so direct response to what was written here...

http://www.nicolavincent-abnett.com/2016/06/incidents-and-accidents.html

We live in a world where life is cheap.
Sometimes there are sales, a coupon here or there, you can occasionally get ten lives free with the purchase of one, they even throw in a kid's toy.
When it comes to the lives of animals, the price drops even further.

If you know me at all, you know that I am a strong supporter of fairness and equality.  I try to speak loudly and proudly for those that can't speak, can't organize their thoughts as well perchaps.
Kids in general, get my support as I believe they are innocent.
Animals, across the board, get my support, even though it might not be extremely helpful.

In the news recently, I was stunned by the four year old boy in the Gorilla cage in Cincinnati story.
Reading those words hurt me deep inside and thinking about what must have happened, it scars me.
It makes my faith in humanity shrink to almost "unrecognizable".

I can't see how a zoo, or any other organization, can pay to train and maintain, a "threat and emergency response team".
I mean they're spending money!  Remember the cost of a life..?
They're spending MONEY!  Above and beyond..!
Is this not absolutely crazy, does this not reach into your mind and squeeze until gooey bits leak from your ears.!?

But wait, mabes my holiday weekend and all that entailed has sun burnt my brain noodle a bit.  Let me try to elaborate...
A zoo has a trained staff that try to protect their animals and the humans that come to visit those animals.  They spend lots of money building huge enclosures, there's bars and fences and "protective" measures right, "lots" of money right there eh.
Then they go above that and train their people, people who become "specialists", to react and respond to any type of unpredictable happenings.
As in, if something should "come along" and threaten the well being of their animals, they should respond and do what they can to protect their investment.
What was their investment again, you're going too fast, flying too low Bishop, even it out a keel or two huh.

Okay, okay, where was I.  Ah yes, their investment.  The cost and time and energy required to build and maintain those bars and fences and protective measures.
Not the animals within, nah!  Animals are everywhere and people can look at them all they want.  All it takes is some cable television or an internet provider.  People can watch videos of animals all day, every, should they want.
What keeps a zoo in business is the bars and the cages, that's where the juicy money's at.

So when "an event" happens, the emergency response team scurries out of their little bunker, they see a kid being dragged through the water by it's leg, by a four hundred pound gorilla...
And they do what they're taught.  They shoot, repeatedly, until the gorilla is dead.
They save the human.

Because to them, the human life is worth "slightly" more.
It makes me wonder how they would respond if someone threatened to destroy their precious bars, their concrete walls, what if someone drained their moat...

So I know, here comes one of Nik's patented Snarky Rants.  Here comes the fourteen paragraphs about what the Bishop would have done, how many humans would have been shot and how the gorilla would have had years of intensive therapy to repair the damage done to it, having witnessed all those messy executions...
But I think I will skip it today, no offense to Nik.
It's easy to criticize and see the stupidity in zoos, any smart human can do it.  I can go on for days about the standards in circuses and don't even get me started on the western rodeos or even pet stores for that matter.

I think instead, I'll focus on what really matters.  The money.
As in, are we really, as a race or a species, too simple minded to see the profitability in animals..?
I think in the future, looking forward with a positive, hope-filled vision...
We should make zoo customers take an entry test, sit at this desk and fill out the following questionnaire.
If you pass the test and are found too competent, you don't get to enter, sorry about that.

If you are just that kind of ignorant human, ding ding, you get to enter.
But this zoo is a little different, the cages are larger and there's no bars nor moats.  No "walls".
Instead, there's a little door with a latch on the outside.  And a sign that says "gorilla petting".
And if you want, you can waltz right in.  There's even a smaller door next to the regular one for "kids entry".  Praps there'll be a smaller, younger gorilla inside.
Cameras posted at every angle will capture your interaction with the animals and broadcast it on the big bad interweb, for a price.
Monthly subscribers can log in, pay their dues and watch as human after human gets the "toy doll" treatment.  You can even leave comments or vote for your favorite animal, mabes make an extra donation to have the next human smothered in honey before entering.

Because I know I'd watch, I'd pay.
I wouldn't worry either because I'd know that the staff of this kind of zoo would be well trained and well prepared, should a mangled human not be able to remove itself from a cage.
I know that they'd come a'runnin' and that poor human would be tranquilized, mabes even tazed a time or two...
But that in the end, the carcasses would be dragged off site so that more stupid humans and their offspring could be allowed entry.

That right there is what I call a positive message Bishop.
And what others call a financial gold mine which is the opposite of, a life.