If you think about it, it’s kind of crazy that we make animals live in cages so we can gawk at them. Even if you don’t think it’s crazy, the animals do.
DO NOT FEED (YOURSELF TO) THE BEARS
In 2009 a man in Switzerland decided he wanted to have a close encounter with some bears. So the 25-year-old scaled a 20-foot fence at the Bern Park bear enclosure, where Finn, a four-year-old brown bear, pounced on him. In order to free the man, police shot Finn with fragmentation bullets. Zoo officials said there was an outpouring of sympathy…for Finn. (Both man and bear fully recovered.)
One day in January 2008, a Golden Retriever got off its leash and darted in through the main gate at the Memphis Zoo. Workers chased the dog, but it jumped a barrier…and landed in the tiger enclosure. A 225-pound female Sumatran tiger pounced on the 50-pound dog and held it in her jaws for several minutes while keepers blasted airhorns and shot off fireworks to distract her. Finally, the tiger let go, and the dog made a full recovery. A zoo spokesmen explained that the tiger enclosure was built to keep the animals from getting out, not to keep animals from getting in: “You can jump off a cliff, but you can’t jump up a cliff.”
Zhang Jiao, 28, was tossing a stuffed panda back and forth with his young son at the Beijing Zoo when the toy went over a barrier and landed in the enclosure of Gu Gu the (real) giant panda—who was famous for having bitten two people—a curious teenager and a drunk man. In spite of Gu Gu’s reputation, Zhang jumped the barrier to retrieve the toy. Gu Gu, who weighs 240 pounds, wasted little time attacking the intruder. “The panda didn’t let go until it chewed up my leg and its mouth was dripping with my blood,” said Zhang after zookeepers used tools to pry apart the animal’s jaws. “The panda is a national treasure,” Zhang added, “and I love and respect him, so I didn’t fight back.”
Trakr, a 9/11 rescue dog, was cloned 5 times after he won a “most cloneworthy dog” contest.