SeaWorld Orlando loses another orca

If it's not educational and only for entertainment, they should make it more entertaining. Because zoos aren't exactly a beacon of excitement.

We should be allowed to poke the animals with sticks.

How much educational value come from Kraken or Journey to Atlantis? Sea World mixes both education and entertainment pretty well, in my opinion.

Even without rides, zoos are not boring, to me at least, but they are not nearly as exciting as a theme park.

SWF's Matinee exhibit made me aware of the creatures and their situation, which I was grateful for. More Zoos should go with the showpark route.

Lord Gonchar said:
If it's not educational and only for entertainment, they should make it more entertaining. Because zoos aren't exactly a beacon of excitement.

We should be allowed to poke the animals with sticks.

I can see you leaning over the crocodile and alligator pits now Gonch...

Bart: Oh, what a gyp. They're all just lying around. [to animals] Do something!
Lisa: Bart, they're not here to entertain us.
Homer: I've seen plays that were more exciting than this. Honest to God -- plays!

Feed the animals live food during normal hours of operation. Though their natural instincts may be gone at this point having had their food served to them dead and effectively on a plate their entire lives.

What Vater said. The great irony is that no one would have any awareness about these animals if they weren't captive in the first place. People cried over bald eagles because you could see them in zoos. Activism over endangered species is greatly motivated by opportunities to see them first hand.

The suggestion that there is no opportunity for study of captive animals is completely uninformed. Much of what we know comes from these scenarios, particularly around the behavior of social species.

People seem to feel that because money changes hands, it's immoral (people say that about CoasterBuzz too ;)). That sure over-simplifies things.

Well, but let's be honest. CoasterBuzz IS immoral.

Using CoasterBuzz is the surest and most direct path to hell.

That's why some of us are regulars. :)

I'd join the club but I don't want Simon to get a better education off my money than I did ;).

I'm just disappointed that I won't get to attend ImmoralityBuzz this year at Hell Point. I hear the gravy buffet is made of tortured souls.

GoBucks89 said:
But they have learned a lot more about the various animals from TV. They have learned a lot more about cheetahs (in terms of how they live, what they eat, how fast they run, use their tail for balance, etc.) watching Animal Planet than they have seeing the cheetah at the Cleveland zoo pace around his pen slowly (sometimes) and sleeping (most often).

The point is that learning is not just about facts and knowledge. In order to really understand something you have to experience it.

Case in point: I could watch a billion different documentaries on Millennium Force - how it was designed, built, planned, marketed, how it rides, every single calculation in the track design and every statistic. But until I ride it, I really can't say much about it.

Mmmmm...Tortured Souls...Mmmmm...

Andy, are you suggesting we need to ride a real whale to appreciate the animal? I'm confused. ;)

You've got to remember that zoos do a lot of work on rescuing injured animals, too. A lot of the exhibits are animals that otherwise wouldn't survive on their own.

Some of them show some incredible interaction with their caretakers, too. It's very interesting to see the barking deer (the female only) at the Akron Zoo that comes up to the fence, and leans its ear through the slats because it wants the visitors to scratch behind it like you would a dog. I'd venture to say it's one of the cutest things I have ever seen. Of course, visitors aren't supposed to do that for fear of someone getting hurt, but the deer doesn't know that.

I saw a calf a couple of years ago at Cedar Point in the barn, that would wrestle with the girls that were responsible for taking care of him. Just like you'd play with the family dog, only a lot bigger. Animals are very interesting creatures, and without some kind of interaction, I don't think we'd ever see that side of them.

ApolloAndy said:

GoBucks89 said:
But they have learned a lot more about the various animals from TV. They have learned a lot more about cheetahs (in terms of how they live, what they eat, how fast they run, use their tail for balance, etc.) watching Animal Planet than they have seeing the cheetah at the Cleveland zoo pace around his pen slowly (sometimes) and sleeping (most often).

The point is that learning is not just about facts and knowledge. In order to really understand something you have to experience it.

Case in point: I could watch a billion different documentaries on Millennium Force - how it was designed, built, planned, marketed, how it rides, every single calculation in the track design and every statistic. But until I ride it, I really can't say much about it.

So you learn more by experiencing a cheetah sleeping in a zoo than by watching them run and hunt in the wild on TV? Rollercoaster analogy is a bad one.

Yeah, the roller coaster analogy is terrible. A coaster's natural "habitat" is in an amusement park, where it's being ridden by guests.

I certainly retain more from actual interaction than I do from watching a program on TV. Even if I don't get to ride Cheetah at the zoo, seeing it in person and learning about it is likely more to stick with me than trying to remember that program on TV.

djDaemon said:
A coaster's natural "habitat" is in an amusement park, where it's being ridden by guests.

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That's not necessarily true, as I think these ones prove otherwise ;).[url"][/url"][url][url]

:)

While there's validity to the zoos help save animals argument, I hardly think animal lovers would stop saving animals if there were no zoos.

And yes, we have learned a lot about animals in captivity. I guess the studying the more social species can benefit us, but really, how much are we learning about lions, tigers and bears in the zoo that we wouldn't learn otherwise?

Raven-Phile said:
I saw a calf a couple of years ago at Cedar Point in the barn, that would wrestle with the girls that were responsible for taking care of him. Just like you'd play with the family dog, only a lot bigger. Animals are very interesting creatures, and without some kind of interaction, I don't think we'd ever see that side of them.

That one isn't going to make good veal.