Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Giraffe Dumpster Story: The True Victims

Okay, so I'm a little late to the game on this one, but a couple weeks ago, a giraffe at the Albuquerque Zoo was put down due to a debilitating injury. But instead of taking the body to the zoo's special "big friggin' animal disposal" area, zoo personnel apparently just chopped the massive awkward beast into pieces and tossed it into the dumpster.

No, really.

Now, if you read the article you will see that people are outraged. Outraged, I say. Children weeping in the streets, men waving torches and calling for blood, or worse, Congressional investigations. An entire city unified by grief and an unquenchable thirst for justice over the giraffe's graceless post mortem handling.

Outrage? Over a giraffe? I think not.

Giraffes are freaks. Nobody gets attached to a giraffe. It's not like this was a polar bear or a wolf or a tiger or something cool. I mean, even zebras make fun of giraffes behind their backs. And zebras walk around all day wearing Zubaz. They are in a position to make fun of no one. 

But there is one party that has a right to be outraged by this whole stinking affair. One group whose rights were sorely neglected, whose needs were overlooked, whose very way of life was ignored when Kafka the giraffe (or whatever) was chopped up and tossed into the nearest trash bin.

I'm speaking, of course, about the lions.

I mean come on, people! They were gonna throw the giraffe away anyway! That's like 1,600 pounds of good ol' Serengeti home cooking.

These lions have spent their whole lives locked in a cage, eating what... Whiskas? And the zookeeper can't even throw them so much as a little neck meat?

Can you imagine that? That's like being stuck in a jail your whole life, eating nothing but tuna straight from the can, and then watching as your captors threw away five hundred In-N-Out burgers. I would hang myself, right there. If I had opposable thumbs. And rope. Which I wouldn't, because I would be a lion.

Beyond the noble goal of giving these big fearsome cats a decent meal, the act would have served a useful educational purpose. The children (of whom one must always think) would get an up-front and personal lesson on the grisly reality of life on the African plains.

And if the lions couldn't eat it all, just bring in the hyenas. Then the vultures. Then the ants.

It's the circle of life.

(dumpster photo courtesy DamnedVulpine)