Chinese zoo stages tiger attacks for tourists

[urbpan]

Chinese Zoo Stages Tiger Attacks for Tourists.

The headline is a little misleading. The "tiger attacks" are staged by dumping a cow out the back of a truck into the tiger enclosure, which is an open area that the buses full of tourists drive around. There are several warnings about graphic content, but I didn't see anything gross. Upsetting probably, but not gross.

I haven't heard the audio, so I'm not sure if this is being sold as enrichment or if its unapologetically for entertainment value. Suffice it to say, this wouldn't happen in a North American zoo.

Comments

[anais2.livejournal.com]

Having worked in Asia, I was at first shocked by the difference in our European sensibilities and the seeming callousness of the Oriental approach to life; I came to understand that their position and attitude is reality-based, while we as Americans prefer a sanitized fairy-tale to actual life.
We can play horribly bloody and violent games, but are squicked by a predator killing prey; not senseless mayhem, but food gathering. We readily eat the same animals, when they have been slaughtered and dissected well away from our sheltered existence.

I then have to confront my hypocrisy, and am now left to ponder...are they ruthless and calloused, or are we coddled, clueless hypocrits who live in a self-serving fairyland?

Your thoughts? I haven't yet been able to shake my conditioning, and reach a conclusion.

[bellisaurius.livejournal.com]

I saw the same attitude with a chinese girl I went out with once. We were talking about what kind of animal we think of ourselves as, and I had said "dog", which provoked this sort of repulsed curiosity. After a few moments, I realized that she had actually eaten dog before (apparently, they raise special breeds for the purpose), and well, it's hard to respect an animal that ends up on the table.

I don't think either position is much better than the other as they tend to lead to behaviors that seem both mutually useful, and mutually inhibiting (in military terms, a good comparison would be our emphasis on search and rescue, which preserves experienced soldiers and pilots, vs a a viewpoint that allows for human wave attacks. Each probably can seem odd to the other group, but both seem to have some balance).

[anais2.livejournal.com]

Yes, I guess it IS cultural. Quite an adjustment moving between the east and west. It has been frightening at times, actually. They seem to lack reverence for life, in some respects. ALL life.

I don't think we will enjoy being occupied by the Chinese, frankly. It will be a real buzzkill for most of us.

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

I think what is disturbing to me is the open callousness toward the plight of the cow; and yet I admire that their culture has accepted the role of food animals, in a way that ours seems to be in permanent denial and self-conflict.

We are, collectively, hypocrites. I see it every day at work when people who ate meat for lunch are horrified to see me feeding mice to the foxes, or when they learn what happens to the pigs.

I wonder if there is some middle position, where you are aware of the lives and deaths of the animals you eat, without seeing them as raw materials whose feelings don't matter.

[bellisaurius.livejournal.com]

Didn't it used to be traditional to take school children to the slaughterhouse as a field trip? (It was for my school anyway) Granted, it's hard to take,and kind of traumatizing, but in the end, it gives one a healthy respect for many things about life in general.

[anais2.livejournal.com]

I think there is a middle ground; maybe we have lost sight of it as we depart from the traditional connection to food sources. As a kid, I had trouble with seeing piggies I had bottle-fed from birth being turned out with the hogs intended for butchering; I think I gradually came to a "circle-of-life" mentality because that example was in front of me constantly. (with only a few sojourns into vegetarianism, LOL)
It isn't a lack of respect for food animals so much as a different mindset than one maintains for companion animals.

I think I would happily eat a human before I would eat a dog; dogs are so much more sensitive, fair, and intelligent than most humans.