animal cruelty at taronga » Taronga Zoo

animal cruelty at taronga
15-11-2006

for all the info head to the abc's website. the animal cruelty allegation report is in the news section, another story is on the 730 report website...
its basically an ex employee who is griping about the death of a male black rhino in 1994 and female komodo dragon which must have been in 1995. the komodo was killed by tuka, the male.
the greens party have seized on these deaths as a reason why taronga shouldnt have elephants! at the end of the day the zoo is about life, and sometimes death. the death of the male rhino who crashed into the fence was a tragedy-but all 6 females were unloaded succesfully in the same manner. anyway the zoo said it learnt from the experience and reviewed its procedures.
and did anyone see the today show today? they were back at taronga and one of the hosts was in the exhibit with pornthip when she blasted him with a trunkful of water!!!

15-11-2006

Ha, this is stupid, yes this happens everywhere, and even more in Thailand where the elephants live in Suburbia!

15-11-2006

hey ben
i know its stuped.

15-11-2006

yeah i know i wasnt paying you out but the greens!

15-11-2006

lol stupid today show - go SUNRISE!!!!!

ahnyway, i atgree witth aspects of the reports, management never listen to keepers, though agression happens in all species with mating, thou the rhino thing could have been prevented.

15-11-2006

yeh i agree with that aspect but keepers arent always the smartest people either. i know this from experience and i imagine that with a transaction of animals as difficult as the black rhinos im sure there would have been lots of different opinions about how things should of and could of been done.
i actually think taronga is getting pretty good at mass-movements of animals. think back to the gorilla troop, the 4 male rhinos from the US, or the white rhinos and of course our new elephants. all these imports went off without a hitch.
we all know how highly strung these rhinos are and in 10 years the zoo has come a very long way in transporting animals, like how they now do float training for different species etc...theyve also bred alot of rhinos in that time. rhinos that never would have been born had the welfare mobs got their way back then. you guys might not remember it, i was a little bloke then but i do remember people arguing the animals should never have left africa. theyre now extinct in the area they came from.


and as for sunrise....i normally watch it but just flicked over to 9 today for a change. most of the coverage of the elephants is on 9 because they won the media contract to produce a documentary

15-11-2006

oh please, you should all be reading the paper and drinking coffee - enthusiastic people in the morning (like you se on TV) just give me the shits!

it pisses me off when the greens take up arguments like this. the environment matters to me and i vote green (knowing very well where the preferances go) but i don't want them to take up every super left-wing, alternative, bo-ho, hippie, animal liberationist argument that comes up just on principal. i know they are a minor party tryin to win votes but come on, i'm sure they have more important things to worry about than who's responsible for a komodo dragon eating another one!!!!

go green
16-11-2006

hey pat
i vote green too
im just going to recap on a point ive made before on this forum about how the welfare organisations seem only to focus on the cute, cuddly and big!
i know we all had differing opinions on the elephant import, but again, how much time, money and effort did the groups spend on opposing this when there are numerous examples of animals in more need of protection here, such as battery hens, kangaroos being slaughtered (not culled-i accept this) etc.
again, when it comes to 'zoo cruelty' its always the same refrain. how many animals do you think die everyday at the zoo? id say a fair few, from old age, natural causes etc. the welfare mobs arent getting on their high horses about the death of a diamond firetail, or agouti with kidney stones. i am sick of the way these opposition groups just latch on to a select group of animals, when the reality is that life and death is part of the zoo. in fact its getting kind of tiring....

16-11-2006

agree. and your right they do only bother with mega fauna. the thing is, whilst many differing environmental groups, parties and orginisations have opposing views on the ways to go about things - in the end they are all fighting for the same cause and shouldn't get too tied up in fighting eachother.

anyhow, bob brown for president!

(thats president of the republic of australia)

16-11-2006

i dont know. i like julia guilard. i like bob brown too. i like john howard mostly. lets not get in to this too much.
and the above point is something lucy melo from taronga said. it also gets up my nose that they focus exclusively on the concept of captive breeding and reintroduction. thats their basis for thewhole argument. they are overlooking all the research and scientific findings that come from studying and breeding elephants in captivity that can be applied to elephant conservation in-situ.

16-11-2006

thats one of the strangest statements i've ever heard!!!

16-11-2006

well i do. they are all good in their own way

16-11-2006

I'm having trouble reading the 7.30 report article and I tunes into the show half way thourhg. What's his name mentioned two breeding programs that failed as a reason for not going ahead withthe eles. What two breeding programs was he refering to?

I am also a green voter ( and party member) but the issue of zoos is one area that i really disagree with them on. The Queensland Green party has constintaly whinged about the polar bears at Dreamworld. Soem of their arguements (polar creatures in sub tropical area) are worth taking notice of, but the when one of the bears was sent away, they fought desperately to keep him here - so is dreamworld suitable for polars or not. Their aruement wa sthat the bears were better of here than in china where the zoo wasn't up to standard, Fair enough, but why then didn't they argue that the bear should be sent to say, an Alaskan or Finnnish zoo?

Many members of the Green party have an agenda to restrict or wipeout all contact between animals and people, including pet dogs, eating meat etc. Despite this I still think they have better enviromental credntials.

Ok off my bandwagon now.

16-11-2006

yeah rediculousness!

i think being an environmentalist and an animal liberationist are two completely different agendas and not in any way necessarily linked.

its vital for the greens to have policies on other issues (and they do) if they ever want to be taken seriously as a party and expect to gain power, but please, leave the animal lib stuff to the animal liberationists!

as for the seaworld thing your spot on at how contradictory these animal-libbers can be (i personally suspect that whilst they love animals, many might not actually now much about them, scientifically speaking..). i originally cringed at the idea of polar bears on the goldcoast too. i'm pretty anti elephants in alaska as we all know and to be fair wasn't too keen on the idea of baking bears either. but the truth is polar bear shores is world renowned for being quite possibly the best polar bear exhibit in the world. they have spared no expense at making sure the bears stay comfortable and cool at all times and the fact that countries like canada are happy for orphaned bears to come here to live is a testament to that.

i will also hop off that bandwagon now!

polar bears at seaworld
18-11-2006

i think i made this point earlier when we were talking about elephants...the seaworld exhibit seems great but ironically, as im not aware of it being solar powered, air conditioning the exhibit is probably generating a disproportionate amount of greenhouse gases
i saw an inconvenient truth recently, and it said that for the first time ever polar bears are being recovered from the ocean-drowned by arctic scientists!!!
and as for the lack of scientific knowledge possessed by animal liberationists i think it explains why they are attracted to the 'mega-fauna' debate. because these species have so much sentimental value attached.