I just got home from the Northern Lights Lantern Festival, where there was a petting zoo. With just one horse trailer to transport all the animals on a hot day like today, it must have been an inferno in there on the drive over from the farm. A too small enclosure was set up in the full sun. With no shade and no way to escape the heat, the animals were crowded in with no free access to water. The piglet was clearly in distress, open mouthed, panting and drooling and hot to the touch. All the animals were being chased by toddlers, but the pig seemed to be a favourite target for little boys. One after the other. All day. Some of the kids were rough with the animals. It was disturbing.
If your kid has never seen a pony, or a pig or a goat, then take your kid to the farm – Petting zoos are cruel. They subject animals to the stress of transport, alien environments, irregular feeding and watering, mishandling, and crowds of strangers. They should just be banned. Next year, maybe there could be a spray pad set up for the children, or a yurt with crafts and children’s entertainment. It would be better for the kids and I doubt they would miss the petting zoo. BAN the petting zoo, please. —Pissed off at Heavy Petting
This article appears in Jul 18-24, 2013.
Zoo’s in general are cruel.
When I was a young fool I didn’t realize they were prisons
The animals I eat, and possibly you too, are in no better position. I also like to watch lockup sometimes.
True enough OP. If there has to be petting zoos, there should be more regulations and supervision.
next year, stock the petting zoo with animals that bite. that will teach the little buggers not to chase. since the parents won’t.
That’s heartbreaking… I hate zoos. x: And pet stores, which are even worse.
Not all zoos are the animal equivalent of Robben Island. The one in the Valley takes a great deal of “pride” in their treatment of creatures. They clearly love their charges and take in abused and neglected animals that had the misfortune to wind up in the hands of chuckleheads who thought “Wouldn’t it be kule to have a lion, hurr durr”.
In more depressing news, the operators of an interactive farm in Denmark recently had to remove pigs from public display because children from – Oh, what is that current Euroeuphemism for immigrants who seem to take offence at EVERYTHING in their new home – were tormenting and killing the piglets.
I know the Bronx Zoo donates all proceeds to conservation in the wild. Some zoo’s, like Ivan had said, do take in foster animals. Depending on injuries and trauma in the wild some animals couldn’t survive without a humans helping hand. And maybe some animals are super bad so they deserve to be locked up like the criminals they are.
And after they’ve played all day with the children who’ve fed them all those expensive gruel-treats they take them into their pens where they are burned with cigarettes, given ipecac to drink, receive forced enemas, and choked. If they get too cute, their little eyes are gouged out and fed to them. Petting zoos are cruel.
I wonder if the SPCA could shut them down?
highly unlikely, with the current animal protection act (which spca has to work under) unless the animal is near death, it’s not ‘injurious’. if they claim they gave them water at some point, or food at some point, and if they have shelter later on, and they aren’t actually dead, then no harm done.
example, some people have chained up dogs in the back 40. ramshackle dog ‘house’. kicked over bucket that may have once contained water. food thrown on the shit-caked dirt in front of the doghouse when the owner remembers. 30 below, 30 above. no difference. no interaction with the dog. just chained up and left there to go insane with the bugs and the filth, dehydration, muscles atrophying, coats matting til it pulls the skin beneath into torturous mounds, unable to respond to any threat except by barking. these dogs are being deliberately tortured, imo. but it’s not illegal under our apa. nothing that says how often you have to give water or food. or how long or heavy the chain should be. supposedly going to get specifics written in someday.
in the meantime, unless the animal is dead, no respite.
we shouldn’t need a law to force people to behave humanely should we? we shouldn’t have to spell it out. common sense should say this situation is not right, those animals are not being treated properly. but it doesn’t work that way. people are rat-bastards.
I strongly object to this need to ‘ban’ this and ‘outlaw’ that. I do care about animal rights and this petting zoo sounds terrible, but I have actually been to petting zoos that aren’t terrible. For example, permanent ones (no transportation) with ample enclosures, water, shade and staff attendants limiting admission of children and staff/ parents monitoring child behavior. I would rather see enforcement of standards of common decency than more rallying cries that contribute to a loss of rights/ freedom and increase the paternalism of our state. Which, IMHO, is something that happens all too often in NS and Canada generally.
how do you enforce ‘common decency’ or ‘common sense’? that’s the problem.
what seems apparent to an ordinary person (that cow looks thirsty) is completely unenforceable by police, spca or the blue fairy. we are stuck with laws that have to spell out in centimetres and grams exactly how much water to give an animal, how much space between neighbours walls, how long a break for a worker on his feet.
who is supposed to enforce common sense or decency?
I was at the Northern Lights Festival and agree with Pissed Off. It was a scorching day and the animals were obviously distressed by the heat and the mauling crowds of unruly children. I know it’s fun for city-bound kids to see and touch animals other than cats or dogs, but exposing animals to these conditions is cruel at best and abusive at worst. Please don’t have a petting zoo again…other than the petting arena this little festival is terrific. If people want their children to experience farm animals, take them out to Ross Farm or other properly vetted petting zoos in the area.