<snort>
While Googling for the Binky photo, I found this [Native American sculpture* made by an Alaskan titled “Binky.”
Oh, and the Binky-shoe pic can be found at the bottom of the page [url=“http://www.geocities.com/SouthBeach/Boardwalk/7897/pbear.htm”]here](http://www.tribalexpressions.com/sculpture/images/binklrg.jpg).
Thanks Eats_crayons here’s the photo of Binky with the tennis shoe, it’s a bit grainy, and black and white. Scroll down the page for it.
For some reason your links got “smooshed” together, and only show the sculpture.
http://www.geocities.com/SouthBeach/Boardwalk/7897/pbear.htm
Hopefully this link will work. I’ll see if I can find some photos of the T-shirts, I had the “sometimes you feel like a nut” version. But it was resigned to the rag bag years ago.
I remember reading about an incident in the Everglades where a young lady was trying to take a picture of an aligator. When the ranger arrived, her boyfriend was hitting it on the head with a stick to make it open its mouth.
I blame Walt Disney. A lot of people don’t understand that these are unemployed wild animals who have no reason not to consider us as happy meals.
There is some hope, though. I heard some hunters being interviewed on the CBC last year. They were in a boat and headed for a place where they could find some moose to shoot when they noticed a white object in the water. After a while they realized it was following them. Once they realized it was a polar bear’s head (Br’er bear was seriously out of place) they turned on the video camera but they also turned on the throttle and got the hell out of there.
It would have been such a good story if they had decided to get some closeups.
What I can’t figure out is why people who would be scared (and rightly so) of a 40 lb pit bull would assume that a wolf, or a cat who weighs twice what they do, or a bear who tips in at over a thousand pounds, would be safe.
Walt Disney. Once we defrost him, he’s got a lot to answer for.
In the meantime, though, I expect to be entertained by a lot of people who just haven’t done the math and don’t realize that the bars are there to keep them out just as much as they are there to keep the critters in.
Having personally seen a man poking a grizzly with a stick, and another throwing rocks at a lion to wake it up, I’m questioning the role of bars in the whole equation. Maybe we should just give these morons a knife and 30 feet of rope and let them go into the wild by themselves to figure it out.
I don’t blame Disney. I blame those obsessive family photographers, usually control freaks. The bears/lemurs/whatever become just another accessory to be posed.
I doubt it. As soon as they ask her to “raise your right hand” she could get the sympathy of the jury.
Hence the username Don’t Poke the Bear, Dad!
Here’s a good one:
Obviously “don’t swim, there are crocodiles there” isn’t clear enough.
Can’t find a cite for my tiger story. IIRC it was reported in Swedish media a few years ago and come to think of it, it was probably lions and not tigers since Kolmårdens Djurpark doesn’t have tigers on the Safari route.
Oh, and not an ‘actual’ safari in Africa, a safari route on the zoo premises. And yes, there are pretty big signs telling people not to get out of the car. Of course, these are typically ignored every couple of years ending with a very un-Disney-like experience for some (most often) german tourist.
I’m not sure a Cheetah could get the job done. They are about as strong as housecats. Ok, that was an exxageration, but I’ve got dollars to bet it couldn’t me, if I was out to hurt it or defend myself.
According to this site:
We’re a bit larger than their normal prey, but I still wouldn’t want to take one on without a firearm.
Reminds me of one of the cards in the cardgame “Chez Geek:”
The Animal Bothering Show:
“This crocodile’s not fully enraged yet, so I’m going to poke him in the eye with a stick!”
To further the fight, Walt Disney wasn’t placed in cryogenic storage, he was cremated and the remains buried in Glendale, CA.
I know they had to shoot the poor aging wolf, but if an incident like that happened in Jockeyland, a squad of armed men would still respond, only they’d have shot the woman, and let the wolf have her. Silly Ginch.
FWIW, she ought to be charged with Criminal trespass, and be civilly liable for the “replacement” of the wolf. Really though, she’s proably gonna sue the zoo, and it’s gonna cost me more to go.
Fuck, I hate people.
Yes, that’s what happens when your type out your VB code while watching TV. I think I missed the first closing </url>.
Thanks for the fix-it!
I can believe it. When I visited England I remember driving through a lion park there. The lions get several acres to roam around, and the tourists drive through in their cars.
The lions looked pretty lethargic, but even as an eight year old I understood that getting out of the car was equivalent to volunteering to become Lion Chow.
In fact, even though I’m not a wild animal, I’m still pretty sure I’d bite any uninvited hand that was stuck in my face.
Those yokels…are they high in cholesterol? How much saturated fat is in the average German tourist? I’d hate to think we’re giving rare and endangered species heart disease…
<Lion King> “Squishy, yet satisfying…”</LK>
My wife was a zoo volunteer for several years, and told a story about one former volunteer who must’ve been the “wolf lady’s” long-lost twin.
This volunteer was taken into “the cave”, which was where several of the larger animals had their night houses. The keeper who was training her pointed out the red lines painted on the floor. These lines indicated the “danger zone” for each enclosure. Step past the line and you’re within the animal’s reach. Only an animal’s assigned handlers were allowed to cross into the danger zone in any situation other than an emergency.
So what did this idiot do? As soon as the keeper turned away for a moment, she dashed into the danger zone in order to reach through the bars to pet the flank of a fully grown male black jaguar.
As she was escorted from the premesis of the zoo and told never to return, she was still commenting that it had been “such a beautiful experience” and it “was worth it for that one moment.”
Not nearly as severe, but someone more typical of the moronic attitude displayed by many zoogoers was the lady who was “offended” by the sight of two Malayan tapirs mating. She asked a keeper to do something (she suggested using a fire hose) to stop them. The keeper replied that they had been waiting years for this pair of endangered animals to mate and if she was offended by nature, she had no business being at the zoo.
I dunno… that thing was certainly not a beast I’d really want to see in the throes ecstacy. I’d have to Lysol my eyeballs afterwards.
From the Brookfield Zoo’s Media Relations Department, regarding the “sacrifice” of Cinnamon Bear:
I have a viable alternative, in two words: chainsaw and belt.
