Tiger King

I haven't observed it so much with primates in general although I have most definitely observed it in PhD students and academics who study chimpanzees in particular (I wonder how much of a coincidence that is ) but sadly I have definitely seen it and experienced it with reptiles.

 

Just take a look at some of the threads on ZooChat for a start. There are people here who can recite the line of ancestors of any orang-utan, gorilla, bonobo, chimp etc. kept in an Western zoo from the top of their heads. Just like the die-hard elephant and polar bear groupies...

 

Yeah but unusual as it may be that doesn't quite qualify as a toxic behaviour does it ?

I mean it sounds to me just like a harmless bit of eccentricity really.

 

You know that I like my toxins, but I'm not a fan of this current tendency to call any undesired behavior "toxic".
As for eccentricity & animals: I don't know. I've met my share of eccentric animal lovers, and that eccentricity can sometimes quickly go south if kept unbalanced and unchecked.

 

As am I, at least when they come from crotalinae , dendrobates or lorisidae etc that is.

I get that it has become a trendy catchphrase to simply throw out there for many but I can't think of any better terms describe it and especially when it debilitates and impoverishes our sector like a metaphorical necrotoxin.

But for the sake of argument what would be a better way of phrasing it , recognizing it (normalizing talking about it and stopping the radio silence that surrounds it ) and mitigating it in your opinion?

Again, I agree but when I visualize this kind of eccentricity I dont tend to think of the harmless almost aspergic kind that you have mentioned but instead how it looks in its ugly extremes. So I tend to automatically associate it with the whole "Cecil the lion" crew and the mentally ill lady who jumped in the enclosure with the polar bear in Berlin a while back to give a few examples.

In essence basically people who have a very dangerous and deluded Disneyesque view of the natural world that is deeply irreconcilable and incompatible with reality.

 

Hazardous? Pathological? If we apply Paracelsius' "The dosage makes the poison" principle to the term "toxic" in regard to behavior / attitude, it would consequently mean that a little of that behavior is actually harmless or even beneficial. Yet in regard to "toxic masculinity", the most common term, for at least some (post)feminists, everything associated or clearly attributed to masculinity is "toxic" to begin with.

As for the Berlin Polar bear woman: either she had that delusional attitude you mention, or she was mentally ill and wanted to kill herself.

 

With the whole ideological "woke" weaponization of the word "toxic" to be applied indiscriminately and widely to a gender , race, nation state, or culture I totally agree it is ridiculous and unhelpful to say the least. There are of course examples of genuine high dosages that would indicate actual examples of racism , misogyny , classism or whatever though but it seems that as a society we have now become so used to the woke PC crowd crying wolf that there is often a tiredness when it comes to confronting them.

However, when it comes to workplace (and study place) systemic issues with organizational cultures this is more a legislative issue related to "old fashioned" labour rights (as opposed to anything "woke") and ensuring healthy work environments (again , we need to distinguish between a healthy organizational culture and the woke concept of a "safe space" which are two very different concepts) then I do think the word toxic is appropriately used.

Actually I have seen cases of organizations facing these issues begin to conveniently paint these kind of labour complaints as just being the "woke" crowd kicking up a fuss about nothing in order to discredit and delegitimize them from their actual real world concerns to create healthy work / study environments.

This is worrying to say the least and of course simply makes me dislike the "woke" subculture even more than I already do because they are impeding genuine and legitimate change and progress being made when legitimate causes get lumped into their meaningless postmodern quibbles about semantics or toilets or whatever.

 

I’ve always loved the board game Cluedo. Right I’m having a guess;

It was Carole Baskin
In the Zoo
With the Tiger

 

As @Batto said this behavior can get wrong really fast, especially if the people start to think that they somehow "understand" the animal, or have a relationship with it. Some time ago, Prague had a very successful live stream from Gorilla exhibit. Very soon a group of hardcore fans formed around this stream that was watching the gorillas pretty much 24/7. It is no surprise that they start to feel that in a way, they are experts on this gorilla group and started to regularly question decisions zoo made. It even got to a point when this group started to be hostile to the gorilla keepers. At that point Zoo ended the stream, but this group still exists (although not really hostile like that anymore, at least until zoo does something controversial like castrating young gorilla male), but now they have to actually visit the zoo to see the gorillas.

The same groups formed here around Elephants and Bears...

 

I recently read an article in a Swiss magazine about the future of zoos; in it, a self-proclaimed "zoo expert" and philosopher argued that zoo visitors should be directly included in the decision making processes to make zoos more attractive & interactive. Examples like the one in Prague, however, illustrate how quickly this can go sour...
Zoo der Zukunft - Der Zoo – eine aussterbende Spezies?

 

Yes I know this kind of ...for want of a better word... "fanboy" / "fan girl" type behaviour towards large charismatic animals can get out of control and I have also seen it myself. There was a commenter on this site who asked a while back about working with big cats and seemed to show some of the same "understanding" for these animals prompting both me and @Batto to comment and leave some constructive criticism and general advice. I do hope that he continued / continues towards working to his goal but that he leaves some of that "understanding" at the door.

What you described with the gorillas is quite disturbing and especially that some of these "Self declared experts" began being hostile towards the keepers. Maybe it is actually better that they visit the zoo in reality rather than just being voyeurs on live stream ? I personally think that a lot of the rude and arrogant conduct would disappear in face to face actions with the keepers.

 

I remember - @Felion from Austria. He participated in the forum for less than a week; I wonder whether he achieved his goal.

 

I'm sure I could of worded my replies to his thread in not such a brutally frank way and I hope I didn't offend him as that was not my intention at all. Hopefully he has been working towards gaining more experience in a meaningful and self actualized way.

But I was really concerned that the whole "understanding" of big cats thing could lead to both dangers to his personal safety and equally crushing disappointments in his expectations leading to taking rather meaningless or exploitative work opportunities.

 

Tiger King zoo handed to rival Carole Baskin

So the 'zoo' is being given over to the Baskin woman

 

Here's the latest USDA inspection report I got from ZooNews Digest on Facebook...

https://acis.aphis.edc.usda.gov/ords/f?p=118:21:0::NO::RXQIZAVXA:2016082569850135&cs=111304FB6F096BBA89B04FC0CE557F832&fbclid=IwAR0N25LrvS32yVuh7mXMtgS1naHCd75bjfIz1XbovwDlkB1O02jGMK_edQA

Curious how the Golden jackal was obtained...

 

They've had the jackal for years.

The inspection itself is really odd. USDA hasn't been doing any inspections because of Covid; their last ones were in March. Except for this one, now. I imagine it was done because of the amount of complains they were receiving.

Comparing to 2019's:

GAINS, asterisks are new species
3 common marmoset*
2 bare-tailed woolly possum*
5 caracal*
1 linnaeus's sloth*
1 northern lesser bushbaby*
3 ringtailed lemurs
1 hooded skunk*
1 bat-eared fox*
3 lions
6 ligers/tigons
1 raccoon
1 red-handed tamarin*
1 richardson's ground squirrel*
8 pigs
1 red fox

LOSSES asterisks are species no longer held
1 three-striped night monkey*
5 wolfdogs
6 horses*
1 zebra*
1 north american porcupine*
2 north american river otters*
3 bobcats
4 tigers
2 olive baboons*
1 fishing cat

 

3 veterinarian visits in 2 years... treating open wounds on an animal during an inspection only after the inspector pointed it out... partially burning and then abandoning an animal carcass on the property.

The sooner this place shuts down the better.

 

What evidence is there for the jackals existence?

 

That someone from the USDA went to the zoo and saw it? I'm not inclined to believe that the inspector just made up what species they inspected.

 

These reports are not trustworthy, especially for rare species. See this thread for more details: Zoo species lists from USDA inspection reports