My Big Wish List (for myself and humanity): # 4 The Liberation of ALL Animals

 

"African Bouncer" at Hilltop Restaurant and Bar, Umfolozi-Hluhluwhe Game Park (South Africa)

Surely my parents took me to the National Zoo, in Washington DC, as a child, but I don’t really recall it.  And maybe it is because I lived in Africa for a long time (actually, I had to drive THROUGH Umfolozi-Hluhluwhe Game Park, in South Africa, every time I needed toilet paper!), but way back in the mid-90’s, I took my young cousins to the Abilene Zoo (Texas.)  This experience, much to MY surprise, traumatized me.  I tried to hide my feelings from my young cousins because I did not want to upset them.  

Well, I failed on that account, because while I was writing a FURIOUS “KELLY LETTER” to the Abilene Zoo about the appalling living conditions (hyenas pacing, depressed lions, don’t get me started….), my 10 year old cousin, Anthony, handed me a drawing:  It was a polar bear melting in the sun, CRYING behind bars.  I never went to a Zoo again-- nor circuses, nor any animal “entertainment” facilities (you know, like SEAWORLD), because I did NOT want to FEEL what the animals were FEELING ever again!

Just after I took this photo, this Grandmother elephant FLIPPED over a safari tour bus (Umfolozi-Hluhluwhe Game Park, Kwa Zulu Natal, South Africa) 

I sent both my 4 typed-pages RANT and my cousin’s polar bear drawing to Abilene Zoo.  They, in response, acknowledged my “concerns” and offered me a job as a FUNDRAISER to help them improve the zoo’s facilities! I said, “No thank you!  I want to eradicate Zoos!”  I know people try to argue that zoos are “educational”, animal medicine research, blah, blah, blah…I am not BUYING those stories any more.  And neither is Costa Rica, I might add—they just banned Zoos!  India just banned “Swim with Dolphins” businesses!  BRAVO!  You want to swim with dolphins?  Go to the Big Island of Hawaii and get in a kayak at sunset, I guarantee you will run into a FLEET of happy FREE dolphins!  Get on a sailboat in Biscayne Bay (Miami), or learn SCUBA off the islands of Bocas del Toro, Panama; snorkel in the Caribbean, whatever! 

June of 2013, a group of scientists, from ALL disciplines, created the Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness to scientifically PROVE animals ARE CONSCIOUS!  Surely, if you have ever had a domestic dog or cat, YOU KNOW already this!  How is it your dog knows when you are upset?  Waiting for you at the door when you come home (15 min BEFORE you even arrive)?  Ask anyONE who lived and worked on the CouchSurfing Collective (“Berzerkeley Edition”), my dog, Oscar, IDENTIFIED a thief at one of our parties!!!  *True story!  For more about this please visit: http://politicalblindspot.com/prominent-scientists-sign-a-declaration-of-animal-consciousness/

 

This is Oscar, who identified a thief at one of our epic Couchsurfing Collective parties in Berkeley, CA

Really, I could go on and on…zoos and animal “edu-tainment” BUSINESSES are relatively NEW on this planet, existing only the past hundred or so years.  OK, let’s also look at this from a very PRACTICAL (as in Not “Hippie”) MANNER:

  Has it occurred to people that MOST of OUR ENVIROMENTAL “CHALLENGES”/IMBALANCES are because WE have REMOVED, ISOLATED or IMPRISONED critical components of our ecological systems?!!! 

But don’t listen to me, DO YOUR OWN SCIENCE HOMEWORK starting with ecology, biology, zoology, chemistry, aerology, agrobiology, agronomics, apiology, BOTANY to start!

LIVE your BLISS,

Goofy G.u.r.u