This is just mindless, pointless stuff I’d like to share.
Thisis a photo of the lone coyote in the Los Angeles Zoo. I don’t even know if it’s female or male. It just stalks all day, back and forth, or remains in the back quarters.
I’m not a PETA type; and, in fact believe there is a good reason for some zoos, (Where else can you see a hippo?)
But this coyote, is in his very small confines, and the irony is that the Los Angeles Zoo is located in Griffith Park. In others words, the animal is captive in his very own native habitat. The people of Los Feliz often come across packs of coyotes on their streets. It’s like skunks or opossums.
II agree that this is way out of line. It’s tragic to cage wild critters like this, and the pacing proves it is troubled.
In fact, today with wild animal parks that attempt to copy native habitat, I think it’s ridiculous to have zoos at all. It’s only a step away from the old carnival freak shows, with animals rather than humans.
Zoos try to justify their anachronistic existance by claiming to help preserve endangered species, but that’s just a copout IMHO. No animal should be caged, and while many zoos try to have some better habitat, still often the animals are caged at night, and still many others are kept caged all the time.
In days of old, many people never got to see non-native species, but today with all the nature TV programs, videos, and photos, there is no need to gape at some poor moth-eaten critter pacing neurotically in a cage.
Klondike, I would generally agree with you. On the other hand, what do you think of the San Diego Zoo? I think their animals are generally well kept. (Please correct me if I’m wrong.)
You mean like the San Diego Wild Animal Park? Then I agree completely.
Your “rant” is something I agree with complely. Please give me some time to respond.
It was a really looooong time ago that we visited that zoo, and I do think it was one of the better ones, but have no idea of what they’ve done since. I had the chance back east to visit a zoo “backstage” to see how things really worked, and was pretty disappointed.
In San Diego would really like to know how the mammals are kept after viewing hours. Even if they are not caged, animals that hunt prey are never given the chance to do so, animals that graze and run for miles, birds that fly free in the jungle, are still kept prisoner and unable to live as they did in the wild.
Fortunately for us, we live where we see a multitude of wildlife wander right by the house: coyotes, bobcats, javelina, deer, birds of all sorts, even snakes (I like 'em, my wife screams at the sight), etc That makes us more fortunate than most folks, but even when we lived back east, had to hike a lot of miles through the woods and mountains to see wildlife, but it was well worth it.
Even if we did not see all these fascinating guys, I’d still hate to see them cooped up in cages or even artificial habitat. The Phoenix Zoo, for example, has attempted to create some natural surroundings, but they’ve a history of animals, including elephants, dying. I saw a bunch of cheetas (lovely creatures) all lying down at the opposite end of the fence in the desert heat, looking pretty sad.
I’m not a PETA type either, but common humanity should dictate an end to zoos and circuses where wild things are kept in captivity. Won’t happen, though, too lucrative.
Dare say the mod will move this to the Opinions forum after all this.
I certainly don’t think so; having compassion for animals and concern for their welfare is neither mindless nor pointless, in my opinion.
If you get the opportunity, you ought to ask one of the zookeepers about the coyote: where it came from originally, what sort of environmental enrichment it gets, etc. It may be that the animal is in the zoo because it has some sort of medical history that would put it at a disadvantage in the wild, or maybe it was confiscated from someohe who was keeping it as a pet. You might even try to get in touch with the zoo’s Curator of Mammals. It couldn’t hurt to ask, anyway.
Hey, I was just there on Saturday and I noticed this poor guy. It might be, as Terrifel suggests, that he was injured or otherwise unable to return to the natural habitat, but it’s still pretty disturbing to see ranging animals in small cages or enclosures. It’s kind of like taking an adult human being and locking them in a room with the Olsen twins for a week. The bear was doing alright though, just sunning himself and being pretty casual about the whole thing.
In general, I find zoos pretty discouraging; I mostly go there to watch and photograph people being gawking idiots (although the aviary at the LA zoo has some great spots for element photography). And not only is it ironic that people go to the zoo to see coyotes when you can see coyotes, skunks, raccoons, and even the occasional fox in Los Feliz, but just a few miles to the north or east you can see deer, bear, bighorn sheep, and tracks of bobcat and cougar if not the cats themselves, and to the west you’ve got sea lions piling up on the harbor navigation bouy for Port of Long Beach.
Oh, it’s much better now!. They have much more natural habitats, with more room, running water, folliage, and interspecies presents, etc. If I lived in a zoo (isn’t that a Dr. Suess tiitle?) it would be the San Deigo Zoo. Plus, they have a choo-choo in front. The sapiens have it best now, but for a polar bear in Southern California, there’s no better place I can think of. The worst off are the big cats in the old cages. The San Diego Reader did an article about “Our Panther;” poor thing. Nothing to do but pace back and forth like the coyote in the LA Zoo. I’d go crazy, like that, myself. But, to repeat myself, the original point was that the coyote is in a cage within a place where s/he would normally live.
BTW, Klondike, aren’t you in an area where the Rosy Boa (sp?) lives? I’ve heard they’re the most affectionate towards humans. Here in CA we have the Kingsnake, which terrifies and eats rattlesnakes. In the SD Zoo they had one with two heads. I had one myself. Not the mountain one, which is basically black, with yellow bands; it was a subspecies that looked like a garter snake. But it had only one head.
There are so few venomous snakes in the States that your wife shouldn’t worry. Most are reclusive anyway (snakes, not wives, well, maybe both). And the Coral Snake (which is related to the Cobra), is remarkably docile. You might pick one up and it wouldn’t do a thing to you (they don’t have fangs)… Just make sure you know the difference between the Coral Snake (a cobra) and the Scarlet King Snake—they look very similar, but I’m too busy to tell you the difference, sorry.
Generally, if a snake has a very triangular head, stay away.
Remember the sceen from the “Graduate” where they go to the “Berkeley” Zoo. Of course, Berkeley has no zoo; it’s fimed at the San Francisco Zoo, which is pathetic enough as it is.
Excellent question. I’d like to know, as well.
That’s fortunate for you. If you find a Rosy Boa, make it a pet. Maybe then she’ll lose her fear,
We have rosy boas, king and goper snakes around here. All are quite docile and easily handled. We also havebull snakes which are ill-tempered and hiss and strike trying to make to think they are rattlers I guess. Incidently, I see that bull snakes are also called goper shakes. Around here we have an entirely different snake that we refer to as a gopher snake.
The best description is west. True, Santa Barbara is very slightly north of downtown Los Angeles but when you drive there at dusk you are driving right into the setting sun.
Argh! Being from the midwest I still tend to think of the ocean as always being to the west. I stand corrected. Santa Barbara is north (and west) of LA, though; more west than north, but it’s not an entirely wrong statement, just mildly misleading.
Bullshit and hyperbole. Coyotes will rarely get above 50 lbs; most (especially in the East) are considerably smaller. They rarely hunt in groups of larger than four or five and are generally shy of people; the number of genuine recorded attacks on adult humans by a coyote can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Attacks on human infants and small children are slightly more numerous, but again, they hardly represent even a small fraction of a percent of injuries to children. You are far more likely to be attacked by a domestic dog than a coyote. Coyotes can hybridize with domestic or aborigonal dog and red wolf, although the difference in estrus cycles makes it fairly rare; such hybrids can show the more aggressive behavior of these larger predators. Generally speaking, though, coyotes function as omnivorous scavengers and vermin-hunters and only become pack hunters when that ecological niche is abandoned. Coyotes, like bears, only become acclimated to living near civilization when people leave food and garbage readily available for foraging.
One of my favorite backpacking memories is of watching a small group of coyotes yipping and howling at the full moon in Joshua Tree National Park; they were about 100 meters from me and apparently unaware of my presence, and I watched them yip and hop around for half an hour. And I love the way they line up along the road at night and just stare out, presumably waiting for a hare to come hopping down the road. The Trickster is my favorite avatar; a clever bloke is he.
Back in the '70s dad and I visited my sister, who was living in Eureka. We drove through their ‘zoo’. The only thing I remember from there was a cage of squirrels.
I know, I know. Every time I vist relatives in Iowa and they ask where I live I tell them about 150 mi. north of Los Angeles and they say, “Oh, on the coast eh?” It’s a wonder I haven’t strangled the lot long ago. I live on the desert and if you go west to the Pacific it is over 200 miles.
In Los Angeles, north should never be mentioned in connection with going to Santa Barbara. West should be as the cited map clearly shows. But I guess it’s a losing battle. Sort of like reminding people that it was Leo Rosten and not W.C. Fields who said, “Any man who hates dogs and little children can’t be all bad.”
We have coyotes hanging around our golf course and as long as nobody feeds them we live in harmony. I really was naive enough to think that by now everybody knew that it’s a bad idea to feed wild animals, especially wild predators. But no, some jackasses started feeding them and they got really bold. The would come up withing 5 or 6 feet of the golf cart and practically demand to be fed. The course is on a navy base and the command finally trapped them all and moved them up to the mountains to the north. Others are beginning to drift in because there are lots of rabbits around the course but it is now a capital offense to feed them. OK that latter is greatly exaggerated.
Ha! I’d love to (also a Gopher Snake, which is non-venomous and looks like a rattler, often 5-ft or so). My wife said I’d have a pet snake over her dead body. So, will get one right after the funeral.
The picture you have shows a pretty well-fed coyote. He may be close to 60-70 lbs. Here in the desert…I live near some rocky hills, and the coyotes out here are good for vermin control, especially rabbits. They are great runners and are much scrawnier than that guy at the zoo. They look like extra skinny german shepards. I rarely see any live coyotes because they are quite stealthy and hunt at night, but I do see the dead ones that cars have hit when they are crossing a highway. Not the 120 lb. rats that Bosda claims…they’re neither. They are far more tolerable than rats or pigeons.
