I want to live in a world where......

Cruising the web and news today I came across this iReport on CNN website called "Filled with Love". I was moved by some of the sentiment and ideas that were shown here on the vid link: http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-426451?hpt=Sbin



It's about the new outlook the managers/owners have about their wildlife park, Out of Africa Wildlife Park in Sedona, Arizona. Their mission strives to educate and entertain; to provide an exciting and engaging opportunity to love and respect creation and Creator. You see caretakers playing and caring for their charges, and animals interacting with the public, like the giraffe taking a treat from someone's mouth.

They list these as their values:  "As we attend to each animal’s daily food and husbandry requirements and to their holistic health and medical needs, we experience their gratitude and friendship – their appreciation of us. We consider their social orders, their natural beauty and essence, their sense of feeling safe and secure, their eternal spirituality, and our communion with them as a common community of life. Our commitment to the animals in our care allows them to portray their instincts, intelligence, and emotions. Wisdom is served by learning the integrity of their world, their honesty, their vitality, and their life-on-the-line reality. Their wealth is a life well spent. They thrive by living in the now, focusing their attention, their power, their affection, in acute awareness of life itself. By cooperating with them and their needs, our human family can, to an appreciable extent, integrate with theirs. Our loyalty rewards us with self-respect and self-fulfillment, for we have become something more than ourselves – and so have they. God is pleased."

While I fully enjoyed the video clip and sometimes think it would be wonderful to experience a closeness with these amazing animals, I remember too that they are wild animals, and as I have posted before, they will always be wild and have their wild instinct. And I sincerely hope and pray they never harm someone when that instinct kicks in. And again, I sincerely hope the managers and keepers continually strive to educate the public who visit that they are still wild animals and this is not how they act in the wild. My concern is that a lot of people will get the wrong message here about these animals.  They will get an unrealistic view of them and should they run across a cougar in the wild will they expect it to be a nice kitty and want his chin scratched? This is my fear. If you do a Google search I am sure you can find all the news articles about tourists in national parks, like Yellowstone in Wyoming who think that it's a big petting zoo, and will continually feed the bears or think they should take a picture of their child next to or on a moose. And then because the animal does what it normally does like protect itself because it's space is threatened and seriously injure or maim the person(s), the person or family sues the park. All because people have these unreal expectations of animals in their natural habitat and that all animals should be domesticated and controlled by humans. Sorry, it doesn't work that way folks. Quite often we aren't the biggest or baddest on the food chain.

Enjoy the clip, it's heartwarming to see and dream of, but never, ever forget that this isn't a natural environment for them. Love them from afar, respect them in their natural habitat and take only pictures.

Living and working with WILD Animals

AP photo

After last week's devastating and shocking death of a whale trainer at Sea World Orlando, and all the analyst's reasonings etc. I had to post something about it.

An article on MSNBC quotes this: "Humans trying to incarcerate orcas or elephants or any type of large brain or large society species, it's proven it doesn't work," said Mark Berman, associate director at the environmental group Earth Island Institute in Berkeley, Calif. "They're just too big." No animals were meant to entertain humans, he said.

And another quote from someone else in the article:  Former SeaWorld head trainer Thad Lacinak says captive killer whales serve as ambassadors of the species to educate the public and help protect them in the wild. "These animals are invaluable in terms of what we can learn from them. And you cannot learn about killer whales through a pair of binoculars," Lacinak said.

Using killer whales to perform, or displaying animals at zoos, brings them to life for the public, he said, something that watching the Discovery Channel just can't do.

"We know for a fact that people do not learn in static conditions. They learn from these animals when they are entertained by them," Lacinak said. "That's just how people learn. They don't learn when they're bored ... They have a greater appreciation of the animals when they walk out." Lacinak also stated the obvious — that trainers know their jobs are inherently dangerous but take the risks because they believe they're outweighed by the rewards.

Ok, while the article relates this to other wild animals that are kept in captivity, like elephants, tigers, etc., they don't bring up the main point here. HELLO!!!!! THEY ARE WILD ANIMALS!  They were not meant to be companion animals like dogs and cats. They were not meant to be domesticated to the extent that you can trust them with your life. They still have all of their bred in WILD INSTINCTS!

They knew when they bought this animal that he had two deaths attributed to him. They knew they should always work around him with caution, but instead the trainer let her guard down and became complacent. And the whale knew it! Whales and dolphins like many other wild species KNOW when to take advantage or injure us. And I am not saying her death wasn't tragic in any way. But the fact is, she became complacent, she knew what she was dealing with. And my condolences and heart go out to her family.

Perhaps keeping an animal in captivity for the educational purpose is not necessarily a bad thing, but don't teach him to fetch and sit up and beg, don't degrade him by putting on a show. Especially something like a Orca. These animals may play on their own, they are protectie of their pods and family members, and they thrive by hunting. They hunt their favorite food, seal. And the sad thing is these animals in captivity don't get their proper and normal diet. I am sure all the animal rights groups would have problems with feeding the Orcas live seals. I don't particularly relish the idea myself, but they should be allowed to be free and eat and hunt what is proper for them. And looks wise, we are often mistaken for seals, especially by Great White Sharks.

Another wild animal case in point doing what comes natural, is Siegfried and Roy's tiger. Animals may put up with the degradation for awhile, but believe me they will retaliate to remind you just what they are. They are wild. Leave them in the wild. We need to appreciate that they are wild and can hurt us.