Being a zoo-goer, what are your greatest fears?

[JVM]

One of the most interesting articles I've read is the idea that a sense of safety is a form of privilege; that we live where we are at constant risk from danger, and the only way to be lured into a sense of broad safety is to become privileged enough that we can become willfully ignorant of risk. I found it very compelling.

I just don't think Americans really know how crazy things are there with guns, they just accept it as normal.

While older Americans make up a majority, talk to most Americans under thirty and you would be shocked that the laws are still what they are. I know many young people who live in a constant state of anxiety and forgo movie theaters, conventions, festivals and so forth because they fear being at any kind of large gathering is increasing their risk of being victim to a mass shooting. Many of them are considering leaving the country based on avoiding this and I know one person who has done so already, and another who is slowly working through the process.

 

[PossumRoach]

Probably living in a place where there are no good zoos that are easily accessible? just a thought

Same. While I was privileged enough to go abroad in the summer, things always seemed grim in winter due to personal reasons and local politics. Really grim. So it would’ve been nice if I lived in a city or country where I could have blow off some steam by visiting a good local or nearby zoo in the weekend to blow off some steam. It also blows because if I was to have any volunteering/apprenticeship experience, I would have to stay far from home in an inn or a hotel which isn’t a great idea financially. Alas, these are the cards I was dealt with.

 

[birdsandbats]

I visit the US once or twice a year. My feeling is that I always have to be wary about mass shootings or a drive-by or being shot by a cop for no reason. (both these things have happened to random Aussies in the US in recent years). I was being shown around Milwaukee Zoo a few years ago (actually in the Australian House) and as often happens in that situation some random dude wanders up and hearing I'm Australian starts going on about all the dangerous animals in Australian he has seen on some TV show. I said nowhere as dangerous as here, and told him that Aussies visiting the US are advised to watch a video on a government web site on what to do if caught up in a mass shooting. He was shocked. I just don't think Americans really know how crazy things are there with guns, they just accept it as normal.

I am also shocked to learn this. That really is fear mongering. While of course always theoretically possible, getting caught in a mass shooting is statistically extremely unlikely. More unlikely than many other disasters. It's slightly less likely than getting struck by lighting. You're far more likely to die in a car crash, for example.

Of course, that being said, Milwaukee Zoo is a bit notorious for being a zoo people often carry guns into. That also being said, there's never been an issue there.

 

[TeaLovingDave]

That really is fear mongering. While of course always theoretically possible, getting caught in a mass shooting is statistically extremely unlikely. More unlikely than many other disasters. It's slightly less likely than getting struck by lighting. You're far more likely to die in a car crash, for example.

Per Wikipedia in 2021 there were 693 mass shootings in the USA (of which 303 resulted in zero deaths) with 703 people killed and 2,842 injured. In the same year there were a total of 11 fatalities and 69 injuries reported due to lighting in the United States.

With a population of 331.9 million in 2021, this would come out to a basic rate of 1 in 93,625 for mass shootings and 1 in 4,148,750 for lightning strikes..... or to put it another way you are 44 times more likely to be injured or killed in a mass shooting than to be hit by lightning. When you take into account that those caught in a mass shooting but uninjured aren't included in those figures, the odds of being merely caught in such an event are even higher.

Even if your quoted claims weren't plainly incorrect, dismissing caution as fear mongering is pretty tacky.

 

[Lafone]

I am also shocked to learn this. That really is fear mongering. While of course always theoretically possible, getting caught in a mass shooting is statistically extremely unlikely. More unlikely than many other disasters. It's slightly less likely than getting struck by lighting. You're far more likely to die in a car crash, for example.

Of course, that being said, Milwaukee Zoo is a bit notorious for being a zoo people often carry guns into. That also being said, there's never been an issue there.

Puts the debate / views about allowing dogs into a zoo into a bit of perspective.

I am ex armed forces so suspect I have a greater familiarisation with firearms than a lot of people in the UK, but the notion of needing to carry a gun on a trip to the zoo and being allowed to sounds slightly odd if you are not from the US. I think warnings about shooting incidents or the need to exercise more caution around individuals who are armed with deadly weapons (for people who won't be used to people having the ability to just shoot them in the event of a disagreement), are actually valid on that basis.

 

[birdsandbats]

Per Wikipedia in 2021 there were 693 mass shootings in the USA (of which 303 resulted in zero deaths) with 703 people killed and 2,842 injured. In the same year there were a total of 11 fatalities and 69 injuries reported due to lighting in the United States.

With a population of 331.9 million in 2021, this would come out to a basic rate of 1 in
93,625 for mass shootings and 1 in
4,148,750 for lightning strikes..... or to put it another way you are 44 times more likely to be injured or killed in a mass shooting than to be hit by lightning. When you take into account that those caught in a mass shooting but uninjured aren't included in those figures, the odds of being merely caught in such an event are even higher.

Even if your quoted claims weren't plainly incorrect, dismissing caution as fear mongering is pretty tacky.

Fair enough. Caution and fear mongering can be a difficult line to draw at some times.

 

[Aardwolf]

Compared to some other venues, zoos make me less wary about the possibility of a mass-shooting, if only because they tend to be more open and spread out, as opposed to a school, club, or concert hall, where you have a lot of people packed together very closely. Not saying it can't happen, of course. I think you're biggest threat of having people with guns in a zoo is visitors having an altercation and it escalating into gunplay.

As a keeper, my biggest fear of having guns at the zoo would be that there would be some sort of animal emergency - something that my colleagues and I could probably handle safely enough - but someone in the crowd that day would decide that it was their chance to play Rambo and things would go south very past. I've never once in my life been faced with an emergency situation and thought, "You know what we need right now? A lot of untrained amateurs with guns that they may or may not know how to use each deciding that they're going to take charge. That'll make everything better."

 

[TinoPup]

I am also shocked to learn this. That really is fear mongering. While of course always theoretically possible, getting caught in a mass shooting is statistically extremely unlikely. More unlikely than many other disasters. It's slightly less likely than getting struck by lighting. You're far more likely to die in a car crash, for example.

Of course, that being said, Milwaukee Zoo is a bit notorious for being a zoo people often carry guns into. That also being said, there's never been an issue there.

I can prepare for disasters, I can receive warning about them and avoid visiting places during time periods where they might be more likely. I can take steps to avoid car crashes, and cars are a tiny bit more important than guns. I can do absolutely nothing to stop someone with a gun from deciding to shoot people, something that happens every day in the USA. And it's not just mass shootings, either. There have been multiple examples of little kids grabbing guns out of purses while in shopping carts at Walmart and shooting people, for example. Accidents make up 1.2% of gun deaths each year, not to mention serious injuries.

It isn't fear mongering, at all. If anything this country likes to downplay what a problem guns are in general life.

 

[MRJ]

Fair enough. Caution and fear mongering can be a difficult line to draw at some times.

Australians are not taught active shooter evasion in school, so we are at a disadvantage.

 

[MRJ]

Accidents make up 1.2% of gun deaths each year, not to mention serious injuries.

And suicide. When Australia banned semi-automatic weapons, the biggest drop in deaths was in male suicide.

 

[TinoPup]

And suicide. When Australia banned semi-automatic weapons, the biggest drop in deaths was in male suicide.

Suicides are 54% of gun deaths each year in the USA. That's not so much a fear at the zoo, though. Suicide at the zoo seems to be more of the "throw myself in with the predator" variety.

 

[tigris115]

God, speaking of that, imagine how bad it'd be to go to the zoo and be around the big cats or bears when someone decides to commit factory reset.

Like that one kid who jumped in with the tigers at Delhi

 

[Pleistohorse]

1) Activists manage to close-down zoos. I wouldn’t snicker…especially in the “Anglosphere.”

2) The global economy takes such a downturn that neither cheap travel or “disposable” income exists to allow most zoos to stay open…
2a) made worse by the fear that economic collapse reduces the incentive to preserve species and habitat…the animals become “bushmeat” or commodities and most of us start using firewood for fuel. Water quality diminishes….sustenance farming returns to Europe, east Asia, and North America on a societal scale and who knows what we take with us on our way down.
2b) more realistically…our quality of life (or at least current living standards of most of us with the free time to indulge our hobby) diminishes to the point that conservation just doesn’t matter anymore. Hate to say it…but the climate folks will probably unintentionally get us here.
2c) less likely…Russia and China’s hope to upend the current world order leads to a nuclear war and fast tracks us to 2b…if not directly to 2a. On the plus side it might kick-start number five…not that it will matter to any of us.

Side-note: If you prefer…that Europe, Japan, Australia and the North America’s (Canada doesn’t get a free ride) desire to preserve the current world order leads to nuclear war…etc…etc.

3) That China becomes the most dominant country on earth by far (for good or ill) and the economic exploitation of fishing stocks, wildlife (North American Walruses, Bears, and Cougars are suddenly gravely imperiled by poaching), and environmentally unsound resource extraction become the norm. Aided by our most corrupt politicians adapting to the new world order. Economic stress on the populace doesn’t help.

4) That the Anthropocene doesn’t wind down into a more demographically stable era of global prosperity until it’s too late. Refer back to fear #2.

5) That I won’t be around in 2.5 million years to see how nature has recovered…so I’ll miss out on the emergence of the Amazonian Hippopotamus claiming it’s rightful place among South America’s restored megafauna. But I can dream…

6) The global socio-political culture evolves in such a way that uncomfortable truths can no longer be expressed and therefore we simply have to accept that domestic animals are the only ungulates exhibited in the world’s zoos. I know…I know it’s crazy…still…you never know. Right?

Just the musings of a grumpy old middle-aged American.

 

[birdsandbats]

5) That I won’t be around in 2.5 million years to see how nature has recovered…so I’ll miss out on the emergence of the Amazonian Hippopotamus claiming it’s rightful place among South America’s restored megafauna. But I can dream…

Hopefully they'll be eradicated long before that happens.

 

[Pleistohorse]

@birdsandbats Hahaha! Even on the scale of millions of years…we still cling to Anthropogenic Orthodoxy?

;-)

“Nature finds a way….”

 

[birdsandbats]

@birdsandbats Hahaha! Even on the scale of millions of years…we still cling to Anthropogenic Orthodoxy?

;-)

“Nature finds a way….”

Over millions of years - yes, theoretically they will integrate into the ecosystem. But in the mean time, they are causing destruction and biodiversity loss. It's better they go in the near future than stay in the long term.

 

[TinoPup]

At least 3 shot at my local mall this evening, in front of the bookstore/by the restaurant we sometimes get takeout from. Not zoo related, but guns are a very real threat in this country.

 

[MRJ]

At least 3 shot at my local mall this evening, in front of the bookstore/by the restaurant we sometimes get takeout from. Not zoo related, but guns are a very real threat in this country.

Sorry to hear that, certainly would be a shock. Hope you are feeling ok.

 

[TinoPup]

Sorry to hear that, certainly would be a shock. Hope you are feeling ok.

It's scary, and will certainly impact going there in the future (which I already don't like doing aside from those two spots, because of parking/how busy it gets). But it isn't surprising. Which is also scary, really.

 

[Lafone]

At least 3 shot at my local mall this evening, in front of the bookstore/by the restaurant we sometimes get takeout from. Not zoo related, but guns are a very real threat in this country.

That’s sad and horrible at the same time. Hope you are ok - it must be really scary to have that happen somewhere you go all the time.