Yeah, but all they’ve got is one little dog.
It’s a shitzu.
Having had the occasional student with a similar outlook and mindset to the OP, trust me, the temptation to give a straight-faced but absurd answers is an overwhelming temptation sometimes – so if the OP is in real life anything as he is on the board, it’s entirely possible the keeper gave him a deadpan 'We cut their wings off ’ or ‘We nail’em to the trees’ answer.
I had a friend on the warder staff at the British Museum who would amuse himself in the Elgin Gallery that way – people would come into the gallery and ask where the marbles were (on the walls all around them); he’d pull out of his pocket a handful of playing marbles and say, ‘There you go.’
I have convinced university-level students on occasion that there is such a thing as spaghetti trees (using a fine parody documentary short made by the BBC for April Fool’s Day) and that Spinal Tap were a real band. I have a terrific PowerPoint slide that shows how the dinosaurs built the pyramids, and another of a manuscript illustration of Charlemagne in which he looks a lot like Capt Picard saying, ‘Make it so.’ So I have it labelled thus in Latin. Other colleagues sometimes do the same thing in their lectures.
As far as I know, my friend would always let the guests on on the joke, and we 'fess up to the students (otherwise it shows up on the exams), so maybe the keeper didn’t get a chance to correct herself before the OP went running off to tell his parents as he does seem to be a singularly humourless kid.
How is this idiotic? I’m not very knowledgeable on this topic. It was just a guess. Even my dad believed that. It seems as if I’m criticized here no matter what I say. Man you guys need to cool down a little bit and stop getting all critical when I say something.
I’m reminded of a story I read once – maybe it was one of those Reader’s Digest anecdotes – about a wildlife display booth that included things like feathers, etc., and a toucan’s beak (so viewers could see the structure inside). One visitor (the OP?) commented, “Oh, I didn’t know they shed those things.”
Look, one thing you should have learned before now is that when you’re in a hole, stop digging. When you say something idiotic, don’t ask someone to explain why it’s idiotic. It makes you look like even more of an idiot.
You don’t have to be “knowledgeable” to understand what wings look like. Most people have a pretty good grasp of this by the time they reach kindergarten. Any reasonably competent observer could have looked at the birds and seen that they still had wings, and that they hadn’t been cut off. That should have clued you in that the attendant was messing with you. Instead looking at the birds and seeing that the attendant was telling you something that was obviously incorrect, you chose to believe that SeaWorld was deliberately mutilating its animals.
Then he’s an idiot too, or else he was messing with you too.
You might consider thinking a little harder about what you post if you don’t want to be criticized.
This is the fucking Pit, idiot! If you don’t want people insulting you, then don’t start stupid Pit threads. Sheesh.
This thread is loony.
Yeah, I’m leaving the Straight Dope Message Board. I’ve had enough with you guys. It’s one thing to get annoyed by my obnoxiousness I presented in the MIT thread, but now you guys are just being ridiculous and unreasonable. Unfortunately I can’t delete my account (which is what I want to do). So I guess I will just not post anymore on this Board. And if you can ban me, ban me, because I don’t want to be here anymore.
~Last words before my departure.
Look–I’m sick of all you tards picking on Anonymous User. Your constantly abuse and lying to him is appalling. Yeah, he’s young, but he’s clearly as smart as…say…BigT and therefore deserves to know the truth.
Anonymous User: Don’t buy their bullshit. You’ve stumbled onto a truth that isn’t revealed to most people and those few let in on it are much older…and never talk about it
Here’s the facts.
[ol]
[li]All birds in zoos, most birds in cages, and all of those stuffed birds in museums have indeed had their wings amputated. In the case of museums and pets, the wings have been replaced with fake, prosthetic “wings”. Totally non-functional, they’re there only for purposes of appearance…and deceit.[/li][li]“Why are they doing this?” you ask. It’s because about 500 years ago, it was determined that the wings of most birds, because they have to flap so quickly to keep them airborne, have a unique chemical property that, when ingested by humans, add to the human lifespan. Considerably. [/li][li]This was first discovered when people began eating Dodo wings–the demand for them was so high, that they extincted the Dodo quickly and soon found birds with wings with more of this property. The Passenger Pigeon, for one. Some remaining bird’s wings have extreme longevity properties. A single parrot wing, lightly battered and deep-fried can extend a human’s life span by like 50 years! A bald eagle? 75![/li][li]It soon became clear that there weren’t enough birds to go around, so the secret was quickly covered up. Only small groups of wealthy and powerful people get access to effective birds wings. The rest of us have been conditioned to eat chicken wings–this started in about 1980. Of course, chickens, being flightless, don’t have any of the stuff that extends life. But it was an ideal way for these cabals to muddy the trail.[/li][/ol]
A lot of people know about this as they get older but are resigned to their lot–and occasionally a new person will be chosen, by lottery, to get a wing. It’s just often enough that it provides incentive for everyone to keep their mouth shut.
You obviously stumbled on this before you turned 45 (when you’re entered into the lottery). So my advice is to ask the mods to close this thread and hope you didn’t get noticed by them so that you’ll have a chance for a longer life in 35 years or so too.
Obligatory please, please don’t go. You can’t leave. What will we do without you. I’m serious here.
(He’ll be back)
So you’re taking wing? 
Only pussies run away.
Anyway, as long as we are all here… I spoke to a guy who supervises people doing community service cleaning trash along the highway and asked how they keep them from running away… they cut their legs off!!! Can you believe it?
Unfortunately it seems you haven’t learned very much from your time here, in particular to be more skeptical and less naive. I know we’re a bunch of big meanies for pointing out when you do something dumb, but like I said the solution is to stop being dumb.
:mad:
You’ll rue this post. You should have kept your fingers to yourself. Mark my words.
:mad:
Don’t believe this bullshit for a second, Anonymous User. It’s all part of The Conspiracy. The truth is that chickens CAN fly, but the chicken wings that are served to the general public have been chemically altered rendering them as useless as mcnuggets. You’ve just scratched the surface of this elaborate hoax and it’s obvious that Fenris is just another of the many coconspirators. Btw there is no lottery, not at 45, NOT EVER. It’s all a pack of lies to keep you from knowing the real thuth.
IXNAY ON THE YINGFLAY-ICKENS-CHAY!!!
Quiet you fool! Do you want them to find out we’re even talking about this???
Puffins do! They grow the colourful outer part of their beak to attract a mate, which is shed when the pufflings leave the nest. I’m not sure if this pic is the shed or a dead puffin’s beak separated from the skull.
That looks like it has remnants of the skull sticking out, so it’s from a dead puffin. I don’t think the bill plates come off in one piece. Here’s a photo of one that has shed its bill sheath.
Yeah, but did the keeper ever take the gorilla to TGI Friday’s?
Dammit, I told you guys we should have cut off his arms. Now he’s escaped.
Loss of habitat is really making zoos more valuable than just “looking at the animals”…SD Zoo is a great example, as is my local zoo here in Santa Barbara…so many species habitats will be gone in 50 years…no cites, but the J curve of habitat loss is pretty obvious to everyone…
My work involves taking care of someone elses 30 parrots,(smaller ones like conures and Caiques and a couple of my own I adopted)…they, like many zoo animals, are well cared for…perhaps overly so:rolleyes: I do fresh food daily, and also round up tree branches and outdoor materials brought in daily for them to chew up…(major messes)…
One trims a birds wing tips only enough to prevent vertical flight, but not so much that if they fall out of the tree that they cant glide to the ground…this is often only an inch or so, which regrows bakc in a month or so…smaller birds can climb like little devils, needle sharp claws, and strong feet :eek:
I try and get the birds to cruise around the property a bit, but they love their flock so much,(even as they hate their close neighbors) that they freak when they cant hear all the racket they all make…I often use Middle Eastern political, religious and war analogies to describe this flock…haha…but I suppose thats a hijack…:smack: