Hey everyone! Let’s get this started for the catalyst for this post.
Earlier, I went to the Milwaukee County Zoo. I simply went with Abby, my mom and a few of my cousins. The trip started out fun with the fish, reptile, amphibian, invertebrate and bird exhibits (I did not know rhinoceros hornbills were so big).
But then came the big cat exhibit. And Abby and I became sad.
So there was this snow leopard in one of the outside exhibits. Being those people that love big cats, we were looking through the exhibit to find the little (big) guy.
We found the poor thing hyperventilating, lying on a slab of stone in the exhibit. If you think that is normal behavior for a snow leopard, let me tell you something: it was 80 degrees Fahrenheit (26 degrees Celsius) that day.
Snow leopards are alpine creatures, so they have a thick coat of fur to survive and live in those temperatures. So putting an animal like that in outside temperatures as high as 80 degrees (or 26 degrees) will make the poor thing dry up and wilt!
Abby asked me “Why didn’t they put the snow leopard inside?” All I could answer was that I didn’t know.
Now, I’m not saying that all zoos are bad. There are some where I have seen the most content animals (there is one drive-thru zoo in England which I enjoyed a lot)! But acts like what I’m saying with this snow leopard just proves that sometimes zoos can be unethical at times.
See you all next week!
– Nova S.