Like I said it's the roads (eg out in the country) with infrequent fast traffic that are really dangerous to cats, because a cat is more likely to be taken by surprise. Some country cats have even been known to snooze on warm tarmac...
Cat but not Zoo related, so apologies in advance, but I found it amusing and wanted to share this story! Hopefully this will make you smile too, and may lighten your mood after the discussion about unpleasant behaviour in zoos.
A friend of mine had, for thirteen years, a beloved pet who was, like many other white cats, completely deaf. "Polar" was a sociable soul with people but I suspect even his many admirers would probably agree he wasn't the sharpest tool in the box. For example, he regularly lost his collar, (no one ever worked out how), which had a magnetic "key" to the cat flap. Nothing daunted, he would then headbutt the securely closed flap for minutes at a time, not seeming to process the fact that for some reason entry was temporarily barred. Since someone would eventually hear the noise and come to open the back door, perhaps he had become inadvertently "trained" to bash his head on the cat flap for the reward of being let in?
His piece de resistance was, however, to snooze, (length ways), along the white lines outside the house, where, in the twilight, he became almost invisible to the casual glance. In addition, being deaf, he had little way of knowing when cars were approaching, (apart from the vibrations, when they were almost on top of him). This might seem like a lethal combination, but fortuitously it wasn't, due to all his admirers looking out for his interests!
Fortunately, my friend lived in a relatively quiet cul-de-sac and the British are both generally a nation of animal lovers and remarkably tolerant of eccentrics, or those who march to a different drum. My friend always maintained that in the evenings you could easily differentiate the visitors from the residents because the latter would drive incredibly slowly up the road, head out of the driver's window, waiting for one of the "white lines" to leap up and run, tail in the air, to greet them. In this way, "Polar" lived a long, (charmed), life and was mourned at the end by many people, (including me). (In case you are wondering, his demise was in no way related to vehicles).
As discussed on here many times, Schoolkids in Zoos often seem totally out of control nowadays.
