Police investigating after man climbs fence, spanks hippo at Los Angeles Zoo Man wades into bears’ feeding area for selfie, could face criminal charges Two beings. A perplexing creature that is incabable of complex thought. And an animal...
The video with the bears almost looks like a green screen joke video. Beautiful footage of a bunch of bears feeding at a small waterfall, then a tourist suddenly enters the frame and just stands there. I can't imagine being one of those people who were watching the live cam and suddenly saw him walk in!
Add this to the San Antonio shark theft and it's been one hell of a time for American's doing stupid sh*t with animals...
At least the guy who harassed the bison at Yellowstone got arrested. Man in Yellowstone bison video arrested on wildlife harassment charge
That guy had been arrested shortly before in Grand Teton, and police had been called on him at another location sometime before or after Yellowstone. He had run ins with law enforcement at least 4 times in the span of one or two weeks. He was intoxicated in all situations.
The idea of a hippo coming out of its enclosure and trampling that guys butt as revenge, honestly, that is a whole lot better. In the video, to me it didn't really look like the butt of the hippo though...
With the hippos, the guy did apparently have enough sense to not get in the exhibit... but obviously never learned a fence means "don't cross" and that rules should be followed... and apparently lacks the common sense to not mess with an animal that weighs one and a half tons, has huge teeth, can outrun you, and prone to bad temper if harassed... ledge or not, common sense should say, leave it alone!
Clearly, several members of our species struggle to understand the truly powerful force of nature that is the hippopotamus...
This kind of idiotic stunts always has me befuddled at the utter stupidity and lack of common sense some people exhibit regarding more or less wild animals, not to mention the idiotic disregard for their own safety and well-being. Does it never cross these people's feeble minds that perhaps they shouldn't just approach a big dangerous animal that could kill you, or that perhaps there being a barrier could mean you shouldn't try and get past it? One has to wonder what the intentions of these people are and how much thought they were able to put into their actions. If she had gotten herself killed this way she would have been a Darwin Award candidate for sure... Unfortunately there's a lot of people out there who like to blame and attack zoos for idiotic acts of people resulting in harm to or the death humans and/or animals and if this kind of dumb behavior had resulted in human death or injury or serious harm to an elephant, one hell of a storm of attacks would have been unleashed on the zoo, even if they did all they could... and that's what also really disturbs me about this kind of idiotic stunts. At least I did read some good news today. The bison harasser who made a general drunk nuissance of himself around the national parks has been punished for his acts. He got 130 days in prison, minus time served, plus 5 years probation with a ban on alcohol consumption and mandatory treatment as well as a 5 year ban from some National Parks. Oregon man gets jail time for harassing Yellowstone bison
Yikes. What really bothers me is that these kinds of things put the animal in danger. If someone did something very, very stupid to provoke a large animal and the animal attacks, good chance that the animal will get killed in an effort to save the person. And even if the animal doesn't get killed during the attack, they could end up getting put down afterward. (especially if the person gets killed) Bonus points if people blame the zoo or the park rangers for it. Odds are, these people don't put thought into it. I'm guessing a lot of them are legitimately misinformed too, (though the way I see it, if you have internet access you don't have an excuse to be stupid) they think that because an animal was raised in a zoo (or that it grew up in a national park around lots of people) that it's gonna be tame and safe. I've met a shocking amount of people who think that any wild animal can be a nice pet if it was raised in captivity. And I'm thinking, if it really worked like that, don't you think we'd be seeing a MUCH bigger variety of animals as pets? Like, geez, have some common sense. Cause if it worked like that, I'd keep a barn owl or some kind of bat and I'd give them cool fantasy-style names. Okay, getting it back on topic, it doesn't help that there are a lot of cutesy pictures and videos online of people playing with wild animals. It's really easy to see those and think that the animal isn't dangerous. Every zoo I've been to has talked about how wild animals make bad pets, and I'm sure they do that because it's easy for visitors to fall in love with the zoo animals and they don't usually see the difficult parts of things. Many exotic pet owners (and even owners of difficult domestic animals like huskies) online spend a lot of time trying to educate people that their pets aren't for everyone, and that having their animal can be more like a lifestyle than a pet. Again, because they know that people can see their animals and want one for themselves. They feel it's their responsibility.
This, let's say, "thoughtlessness" is not limited to interactions with animals. You can find plenty of people in emergency wards (and in a few cases consequently also morgues) who ended up there because they did not think about the consequences of their actions beforehand. The internet is full of videos documenting "craftspeople" completely ignoring the very basics of occaptional security, amateur "stuntmen", reckless drivers...and I'm pretty sure each of us has encountered at least some examples of this in real life. I can't tell how often I've had to get tourists out of a bull meadow. Just the other day, our guard dog had to "illustrate" an illegal trespasser that the various warning signs at the (chained-up front gate) are not just there for show. What really bothers me in regard to the wild animals is what TMO already mentioned: that the animal involved all too often pays the (fatal) price...
What about the idiots who hold their small children over barriers? Especially when ignoring dangerous animal warnings!
Another example of a complete and utter ***** I came across today... a video shared on Facebook of an idiot holding what looks like a snapping turtle, then playing kissy-kissy with it... https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=2145157505747023 He's lucky to not have half his face bitten/ripped off because of his moronic act.
@KevinB : Unfortunatley, there are plenty of similar examples with various chelonian species available online.