Animals in captivity

[crashdive123]

There are alot of organizations out there that do great things to help wild animals. Do most rescue organizations release the animals back into their natural habitat? What about zoo's - great for educating the public about different animal species, but what happens when wild animals come to rely on man for their existence? Read an article on Knut (polar bear that the world fawned over). Seems like he likes the attention of people.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?in_article_id=544849&in_page_id=1811

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I always remember these wolves I saw in the Vancouver zoo when I was a teenager. They seemed so....broken. I've been fortunate enough to see wolves up pretty close in the wild too and they have an enormously powerful presence. The three I saw in that zoo all seemed like they wished someone would kill them. One of the creatures that understands it's own freedom and it's place in the world, in my books.

[FVR]

When I was a kid, 9th grade, I got a baby crow. Three had fallen out of the nest, I took one, Drew took one, and Vance took one.

As soon as I got "Corvus Egor III" (the III just sounded good), I promtly started him on wet catfood. I never caged him and used a perch and leather thongs to keep him put. I fed him and cleaned up crap for a month until his wings started to fill out.

I then would take him into the backyard and while holding his legs, raise him up and down, to work out his wings. I did this for a few weeks, then came the lightweight ropes that attached to his leg. We practiced flying.

In the meantime, I would take him over to the rabbit huch and show him how to dig for grubs and worms. He caught on real fast and was slamming those buggers. I then showed him how to pull bark on trees, and I was feeding him table scraps. I had stopped hand feeding him long before. He would tear into chicken and other meat scraps.

Boy, he made alot of noise. Everyday, we would go out back and I had started not using the lightweight rope around the leg. He would fly off to the big tree, then to the big oak, then to the garage. He use to sit on the back of Ceasar, my lab. I have pics of both of them on the doghouse roof.

Oneday, I took him out for exercise, I knew this was the day. He use to fly all over the place, but would always come back. Today, I knew, it was time, his time.

He flew off, hit the trees, then he flew off. I was sad, but happy at the same time.

My mother was really happy, well, so she thought.

Corvus would show up every morning, sit in that tree and caw. I come outback and he would caw, then fly away.

His visits started to be far and few, sometimes, in that tree, there would be three crows just making all kinds of noise.

He stopped coming, I grew up and graduated hs. Every now and then, during that time, a big crow would sit in that tree and just make racket. Yeh, it was Corvus.

After hs, I joined the USMC. After bootcamp, I got a letter, seems that there was this big old crow just making a racket in the tree. Guess it was him, or one of his kin.

Now, my friend Drew, he never broke his crow from finger feeding. He let the crow go, it came back. It attacked the neighbor ladys hair oneday. He took the crow and drove it 10 miles away. By the time he got home, his crow was there.

Don't know what happened to his crow, probably died somewhere.



To this day, every now and then, my mother will call. Damn crow sitting in that old tree woke me up this morning. Makes ya wonder.

[crashdive123]

Nice story Frank. Thanks.

[Rick]

Leather thongs? What is it with everyone on here and their thongs? Don't answer. I don't want to know....

Good story, Frank.

I read somewhere that when a caged animal paces back and forth it's a reaction to stress. If they do that long enough the animal becomes neurotic. Don't know if it's true but that's what I read.

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I read somewhere that when a caged animal paces back and forth it's a reaction to stress. If they do that long enough the animal becomes neurotic. Don't know if it's true but that's what I read.


I don't know that it's true but I don't doubt it. I've always been told the same thing. Funny, I have friends who are like that when they have to live in "civilization" for more than a few days.

[wildWoman]

I've always hated zoos. To me, it seems like jail for animals. I'd rather see the $$ and efforts go into preserving wildlife habitat. Also, I don't know how much you can actually learn about wild animals when they are in captivity. The ones that range over large areas of land seem so defined by how they move about, it must be a violation of their nature to get locked up.

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I agree wildwoman.

[Alpine_Sapper]

I've always hated zoos. To me, it seems like jail for animals. I'd rather see the $$ and efforts go into preserving wildlife habitat. Also, I don't know how much you can actually learn about wild animals when they are in captivity. The ones that range over large areas of land seem so defined by how they move about, it must be a violation of their nature to get locked up.

Most of the zoo's I've been to are not necessarily about learning about wildlife. Yeah, my kid learns a lot by seeing wild animals she'd never get a chance to see in the wild (like I'm gonna drag her on an African safari at her age...yeeeeeeeah...)

But, a lot of zoo's are taking care of animals that can't be re-habilitated into the wild after a rescue. This isn't always the case, and you can really tell the good zoo's from the bad (San Antonio zoo for example. very very bad. very little natural habitat, and you can just tell the animals are MISERABLE in the heat.) but, like, Dallas or Fort Worth zoo's try to do a good job with the habitat, and the animals are much better taken care of. The zoo in Madison Wisconsin did a really good job, too, iirc.

While I agree about the jail for animals thing, I do see the good side to zoo's, too. Besides, it keeps the kiddo's entertained.

[Rick]

It's a mixed bag to me. The plus is it's one of the few places left on earth where a tiger actually exists. Their numbers are suffering terribly in the wild. It is estimated that there are between 5,000 and 7,400 wild tigers alive in the world today. That is only about 7% of the wild tiger population that existed a hundred years ago.

Zoos have been responsible for the re-introduction of endangered species back into the wild. Black-footed ferrets, California condors, and red wolves, have been brought back from the brink of extinction through successful managed breeding programs.

And they obviously increase public awareness of wildlife conservation issues. So, to that regard, I think they do a great service.

I just wish there were some other way to do it without caging an otherwise wild animal.

[canid]

there i too small a tradition in north america of private land owners establishing wild game preserves on unused portions of their properties. i understand that if you life on an acre you won't accomodate anything larger than a few squirrels and a stop-over for nesting birds, but come on. if i had a hundred acres i'd certainly let the fauna roam. if i had a thousand... conservation, in whatever flavor you value it -if any- is a private duty as much as a public one.

[GVan]

Once an animal becomes emprinted upon and dependent upon humans they either have to be retrained, or kept in captivity for the rest of their days.

Now, that really sucks.