So today my host sister and I are sitting in the “kitchen” making the afternoon soup and she is drilling me on my favorite animals and what animals live in The States. She asks if I have ever seen a shark.
“Yeah, quite a few.”
“Weren’t you scared!?”
A little confused I said, “No. Well, if there were sharks around when I was in an ocean I didn’t see them, thankfully, the sharks I have seen have been in Aquariums.”
“What is an Aquarium?”
Yup.
She says she knows what a Zoo is. I explained an Aquarium and her eyes grew wide. The idea of a fish tank bigger than her house is a hard concept for her to grasp.
“The poor fish.” She says. Then a quick and sharp thought goes through my head: not a single animal I have seen here is caged. Yeah, they tie up the cows at night to keep them from eating themselves to death, but that is for their own good. The cats come and go as they please, the dogs roam free, even the chickens, roosters and guinea pigs have their way around the house. But, the thing is, each animal knows where they live. Not a single animal leaves a small designated area they know to be where they belong, and if they venture out of that area with the smallest sound they flee in fear right back to their home. The idea of caging an animal is sad to Roxana. Just think of how sad the way we treat our pets would make her feel. Imagine taking her to a Zoo or Aquarium.
So, I proposed to her some thoughts to chew on: “What if a population is dieing?” She said we should take one male and female, no more, to a Zoo. Good answer, I thought.
“Aren’t they more safe caged and given medicines when they are sick?”
“Why would you want to live healthy and sad?”
Another good answer, I thought.
“If we don’t have Zoos, how will we learn about animals?”
“What do you mean?”
“How will we observe animals and learn about them if we can’t keep them in one place and study them?”
“Why wouldn’t you just study them in their natural habitat?”
“Good point. But then how will people that aren’t scientists learn about them? I can’t afford to fly to India, but I would love to see and learn about tigers.”
“Why would you need to learn about tigers if they don’t live near you?”
What a concept. That said, she loves learning about animals. We had a whole conversation about dolphin brains together, but she doesn’t think it is necessary to take that animal from its natural habitat. The harm it does to the animal isn’t worth the value of her seeing it. If she really has a passion for dolphins, she will go to where they are. Did you know there are pink dolphins in the Amazons of Northern Peru? Me neither.
No comments:
Post a Comment