The latest animal culling at Copenhagen Zoo has illustrated once again that there is something really messed up in this world. I find it unfathomable that people can allow themselves to get so worked up about the downfall of five animals in a zoo in Denmark.
Meanwhile, millions upon millions of human beings are living in desperate poverty and are spilling across borders after being displaced from their homes thanks to conflicts in places like Syria, the Central African Republic, Mali and Somalia, to mention but a few.
There was more media focus on the putting down of one giraffe than there was about protesters being gunned down by government militia in Venezuela, or the 1,000,000 impoverished people fleeing for their lives in South Sudan.
Bigger fish to fry
Maybe, just maybe, we have bigger fish to fry, or lions to cull, if you prefer.
Instead of bleating away in the wake of an ill-informed circus drummed up by a biased agenda driven by the media, perhaps people should face the crux of the real issue behind this ‘outrage’.
The very reasons why animals are kept and unfortunately sometimes put down in zoos today are directly related to these woefully underreported travesties.
These conflicts, overpopulation, poverty and human encroachment onto natural habitats are why people like Bengt Holst have to go on Channel Four and explain to a bullshit artist of a news host why he must maintain the pedigree of future animal generations.
Zoos are important
Zoos may have begun as a form of entertainment, but they serve a higher purpose now, particularly considering the unsustainable oblivion that the world seems intent on hurtling towards.
Of course, we would all prefer to see lions and giraffes basking in the sun on the plains of the Serengeti, but the reality is that a poacher can earn the equivalent of an annual salary for his desperate family by shooting certain animals and selling off their remains.
But, can we really fault the impoverished third world for hacking down forests and draining water basins, when the developed world do the very same thing in the name of profit? The only reason that poaching exists is because there is a demand for it and that demand doesn’t come from undeveloped nations.
Tears back in Nam
In 2011, the Western Black Rhino went extinct, which translated into barely any media attention, although it did perhaps coax a tear or two out of the eye of a billionaire somewhere in Vietnam who had lost the components of his traditional medicine.
Historically, the Western Black Rhino existed across central and western Africa, with populations in modern-day Cameroon, Chad, the Central African Republic, Sudan and South Sudan. See the connection?
And does it not waft of hypocrisy to whinge about the demise of a few zoo creatures when the animals that make up our food industry spend their abysmal lives in a stall the size of a phone booth?
Perhaps they should read ‘The Jungle’ by Upton Sinclair, because yeah, it sucks about Marius and the lions, but pass me a freaking McDonalds burger because writing another Facebook update about how much of an asshole Bengt Holst is has made me starving.
