To: President, Wenling Zoo, Zhejiang Province, China
Dear Sir,
Re: Abuse of a Tiger
I have just watched a video that was made at your zoo. It shows two of your employees abusing a tiger in the most callous and wanton manner that is totally inconsistent with the duties of zoo keepers.
Your staff have broken this tiger’s spirit and heart. It is tragic to see a proud tiger in such a mentally submissive and broken state. Incidentally, has the tiger been declawed?
If you really must keep tigers in a zoo you have an obligation to care for the animal to a high standard. Personally, I would just shutdown your zoo and rehome the animals at places where they can be treated with some dignity. I would feel fairly confident in saying that such treatment is probably endemic at your zoo and part of your zoo’s culture. Please tell me that I am incorrect.
I would respectfully ask you to consider sacking these zoo keepers or at least reprimand them and then retrain them. You should also consider a complete rethink on how you go about caring for animals at your zoo.
Yours faithfully,
Michael Broad
Note: I wish the tiger would tear the heads off these zoo keepers… 😉
This is a translation to Simplified Chinese:
亲爱的主席先生，
滥用虎
我刚才看了一个视频，在你的动物园。它显示了两个最无情和肆意虎在动物园饲养的职责是完全不一致的方式滥用你的员工。
你的员工已经打破这个老虎的精神和心脏。可悲的是在这样一种精神的顺从和破碎的状态中看到傲虎。顺便说一句，老虎被declawed？
如果你真的必须保持在动物园里的老虎，你有责任照顾的动物，以高标准。个人而言，我只需要关闭你的动物园的动物的地方，在那里他们可以处理一些尊严和重新连接。我会觉得相当有信心的说，这种治疗可能是在动物园和动物园的文化的一部分流行。请告诉我，我是不正确的。
我谨请你考虑解雇这些动物园饲养员或至少谴责他们，然后再培训他们。您还应该考虑一个完整的重新思考你如何去爱护动物在动物园。
此致
迈克尔·布罗德
Note to any Chinese who listen and read: these are computer generated translations and vocals. There will be considerable error but the gist should be understandable.
I hate zoos – I just had this argument again today with the same co-worker. He thinks he should take his kids to the zoo for educational reasons and I think we should put them all out of business. To be fair, here in Switzerland the standards are high and animal abuse is non-existent but I still think we should boycott the zoos and put them all out of business. Making money out of animals by making them sit there, trapped, to be gawped at by humans, or should I say, consumed, is not right and doesn’t preserve anything. It might actually give a kid the wrong idea. Plus a tiger is not a tiger without his or her home and land. What is a penguin in a swimming pool being hand fed with nowhere to go. Not really a penguin in the educational sense. Penguins should be diving off of glaciers, not a 2 foot concrete wall, surrounded once again by ugly human beings. I am embarrassed to be human. To be totally honest, if I drop dead tomorrow the world will be a better place because that will be one less person to eat and sh*t and eat and sh*t for another god knows how many years. When are humans going to realize that we are only important because we kill. Nothing more. We should all just off ourselves and do the rest of the ecosystem a favour since we lost our place in that chain a long time ago when some turd decided to throw a rock at an animal or whatever it was that got us this far into hell with our stupid emotionally retarded brains and selves. At this point trying to live longer seems like a crime.
And why is it that people in animal services are the ones who abuse the animals. I guess that’s another failure of our economy- you take what job you can get whether you give a damn what it’s about or not. I have nothing good to say here. China sucks ass in so many ways it’s incredible, as do we all, but when it comes to animals china really does win the prize. Since there’s so much to worry and care about I think I will continue to limit myself to worrying about the animals since they don’t deserve the human race. Also, no matter how many nice people there who care about animals, it means jack sh*t in the grand scheme of things at this point. Besides, half of them eat animals.
There is one simple rule we should all obey here – DONT have children, ever. There are lots more rules but at least by not having children there is hope for an end. It also means that ones karma doesn’t somehow have continue after you die, life after life. My dad died. He was super nice. My brother likes animals and will never have children. He is the only person left with my last name other than me from our line and he is much older than me. I have a feeling I will be the last of us and I will be proud to ensure my familly ends for good. That’s just how I see it. It’s a peaceful feeling and it feels so right.
This is what children believe penguins do. This is their habitat. Substitute glacier and ocean for concrete wall and shallow swimming pool.
I think one factor is that the people who abuse this tiger are fed up and possibly in some way abused themselves. They can’t complain to the boss so take it out of the animal one down in the chain, the broken tiger or whatever else is available. This is not an excuse. There is no excuse. They should be flogged.
The world’s biggest problem, by far, is over procreation – breeding, to many kids – and it is the one problem that, due to misplaced political correctness, is hardly ever discussed. That failure will bite us in the collective bum big time in years to come.
People believe that it is their right to have children and they want to continue themselves by having children. The ‘family’ is the holy untouchable thing. The family is what is threatened by terrorism, the familly is what people want to protect with guns – the kids, the children, bla bla bla. It’s impossible to stand up and say sod it all because it’s just so anti because everybody is consuming the whole 2.5 children lifestyle like there’s no tomorrow. And you know what, there probably is no more tomorrow – lol – I am sorry for being so difficult. In my world there’d be very few cars, no commuters or big famillies and a bunch of other stuff. It seems like in this day and age its not even fair on the children themselves to have children so it only serves the consuming desires of the parents I guess.
I have very extreme views. I believe the world, humanity, has reached a very extreme reality and I can’t see any other way to think in order to survive and feel ok. At the very end, if I meet somebody and we feel like having children – and if I ever get ‘that’ feeling of wanting to have a familly I will bite my lip and say no because its not fair, no matter how pure and right that feeling may be, it’s just not fair to start creating new peoples and families in this world right now.
My apologies, I get too wrapped up in it. (You know, far too well.)
One thing about this tiger is that she is small. This is possibly a Sumatran tiger or a sub-adult that was born at the zoo and broken from day 1. Disgusting humans.
It’s very sad. I still can’t watch it though. What a horrible looking place to live – let alone the people.
Yes Michael I CAN guess and do you know what, I’d hold them down for you while you did it!
And who might that be, ruth(k)?
Caroline, it would include a certain amount of violence.
🙂 Make me happy. Every cat that was abused would get a bit of payback.
I could see from the still that the tiger was submissive and it breaks my heart, I hate it when people break a cat’s spirit, I feel real hatred towards those people and would love to give them a taste of their own medicine, I really really would!
You might be able to guess, but what I would like to do them might shock you 😉 I detest them.
Get real, Michael, you are seemingly vague in your replies. Why don’t you lash out? Am I out of line by being so direct towards these vagrants?
[How could any decent human being hurt any cat, weak or weak (a bullet due to the law and some stupid drug-addled human is the same thing?]
I have accepted your comment but please keep comments calm and sensible. What is the point in “lashing out”. That achieves very little. You can achieve much more by saying things accurately and politely. Lashing out is ranting and people look down on ranters. It is not dignified or sensible to rant. There is far too much of it these days. Just look at YouTube comments. Horribly useless.
Thank you, Michael. Point well taken. I apologise. Hopefully, it won’t happen again. [I really get upset–obviously, when my poor buddies at the zoos here in the states, have to suffer abuse like I do. When we only care., And it seems like everybody else it stomping on us.] Sorry. my FAULT
Caroline, I am holding some of your comments in a moderation queue. You should know that. I welcome comments always. Of course I do but…there are some limits and standards because PoC has to rise above the tons of trashy comments that are on the internet. It is meant to be a quality website 😉
So would I, Ruth. so would I.
Good on you Michael for writing that letter! Sorry I can’t bear to watch the video but I can only too well imagine them abusing the tiger, it’s too horrible and upsetting for words.
Yes they do dreadful things to cats in China and I can’t understand how any human being can be so cruel!
I had to steel myself to watch it. The tiger is totally submissive after what I presume is years of abuse. Horrible. I translated it and even had the Chinese spoken as you can see so there is no barrier to being understood. Of course, automated translations are not good but they should be adequate.
Michael, the tigers are always “submissive.” why don’t you say something pro-tiger, PRO-territorial cat, pro-wildcat. Have any of you carrying on this inane dialogue seen anything worse than what happened in the S.F. Zoo? I am a visual person, like my cats, and it truly breaks my heart.
I was fortunate enough to watch tigers mate at the Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha, NE sev. yrs ago. I watch. I wait. And one of these days, hopefully, I will not if all of these efforts on this planet are worth anythint. The one thing I do know: these other animal, most magnificent species, are worth it. –I’m not sure that we are. But! Like commented before, we CAN make a difference, not only with our own, but with all.
_^..^_
Tigers are the opposite to submissive so the rest of your comment is sort of pointless.
No cat is submissive by Nature, it’s cruel people who make them so by ruling them with fear of more abuse!
I couldn’t watch it either Ruth – but the first picture is enough already. It’s embarassing to be human. This planet can’t wait until every last one of our disgusting species is gone forever. It literally cannot wait because we will destroy it pretty quickly.
Yes Marc it is embarrassing to be human, I really do think there are two species of humans, those who have a heart and a conscience and those who don’t.
We will wipe ourselves out, it’s only a matter of time and maybe if Mother Nature allows the human race to evolve again we will get it right next time, because this time we have got it sadly wrong!
Anyone who can’t recognise the fact that the human species is a complete disaster for the planet is stupid or arrogant or both.
That’s what you can expect from China. They think nothing of skinning live animals or dunking cats in boiling water so the skin comes off easier.
Sadly, yes. What is interesting is when you go to YouTube to watch this video (which I do with great difficulty) you can read very defensive comments from what I presume are Asian people. There is a deep seated distrust and/or animosity between the Chinese and the West.