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Silver Dragon Breath dragon forums
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| Did you ever wish you had a animal you could never afford? |
| yes |
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52% |
[ 11 ] |
| no |
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19% |
[ 4 ] |
| some times |
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28% |
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| Total Votes : 21 |
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SkieFireYokana
Shining Dragonstar
Joined: 16 Feb 2005
Posts: 394
Location: Drowning in the landlocked sea of humanity.
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 Posted: Thu 26 Feb 2009 10:40 Post subject: |
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Uh-huhh... Not to SAY you're lying, but I don't believe that any zookeeper in their right mind would let someone into an exhibit like that. It'd be risking their job and the life of the animal AND person entering the exhibit. Even to go swimming with the dolphins, there are several zookeepers there at all times; a black jaguar (or is it a leopard? I'm not familiar with which zoo you're at, it could be either I guess) is many times more dangerous. I could be wrong, of course, and if I am that's an incredible experience.
As for the mental images, yeah it's normal if you aren't lying. Perhaps you're just more sensitive to her thoughts in particular, due to your bond, but I can talk to animals in a limited fashion. Housecats excepted. >.< As an example, someone I knew was trying to get a picture of two animals, but they were moving too much for her to get a proper snapshot. A polite request, and they paused until she had her shot, then they continued pacing. The black jaguar at my own zoo likes to look at me--well, when he isn't sleeping--in particular, but I haven't really gotten TOO much from his mind other than that he doesn't like the crowds that inevitably form outside his exhibit when he's moving. He mostly sleeps during the day, so even that got through fuzzy. But, yeah, it's normal for the most part. I'm guessing, though, that you're a mostly visual learner and thinker, because I always get things in concepts rather than images, and my subconscious filters it to words.
On topic, of course, I have very often wanted to own an animal I can't afford. I wouldn't be an idiot and keep it in a little itty-bitty space; I'd never even think of buying a black jaguar until I had the property all picked out and a very, very large house put up. I'd probably have half of it dedicated to his roamings, with trees and everything. Bigger than the Zoo exhibit here, and the San Diego Zoo is internationally acclaimed so I'd hope the area I gave him would be plenty. And, of course, if he seemed unhappy, there's the San Diego Zoo right there. I could give him to them and visit every day; after all, if I could afford to get one and such, I could afford to go there every day. And, considering that I'd have been his previous owner, I may be able to talk the zookeepers into letting me in with him. That would be nice.
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Shiari
Moderator
Joined: 26 Apr 2008
Posts: 227
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| Posted: Thu 26 Feb 2009 12:12 Post subject: |
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Considering they have cameras in the areas behind most exhibits... I'm going to not particularly believe that you were let into the cage of animal at the zoo. The keeper would be fired, and you would be in trouble.
Large cats are not tame, friendly, or cuddly. They are tolerant so long as you provide them with something they want, but they are unpredictable and you can turn from "provider of food" into "food source" very very quickly.
As a vet tech, I get the joy (sarcasm) of working with the exotic hybrids that people are making now. They are psychotic, nasty pieces of work because they are WILD.
The only way you could hope to keep a captive great cat even remotely happy would be to have several acres of wooded land entirely fenced and moated for the creature to ramble through at will. Panthers are not social animals, so it truly wouldn't care whether you were there or not, unfortunately. It's like people trying to say they have bonds of affection with the raptors they fly... Predator birds don't work that way. |
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harrypottertew
Dragonstar
Joined: 05 Jun 2007
Posts: 105
Location: cant figure that out
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| Posted: Fri 06 Mar 2009 10:00 Post subject: |
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Well not to be rude or anything but for the last post above me there were precautions put into action... the keepers were always armed with guns... not tranquilizers and the panther was always fed before I was allowed inside the cage. Also the panther was born inside the zoo so she wasn’t completely a wild panther. I and the panther enjoyed the company of each other… imagine that you were cooped in a cage and someone comes up and has a psychic connection to you... You wouldn’t put that in jeopardy if you had a person or animal to keep you company wouldn’t you?
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Ragnarok
Global Moderator
Joined: 27 Sep 2004
Posts: 1091
Location: Tucson, AZ, USA.
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| Posted: Fri 06 Mar 2009 10:43 Post subject: |
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| harrypottertew wrote: |
| Also the panther was born inside the zoo so she wasn’t completely a wild panther. |
And the chimp that recently came just a hair short of killing its owner was raised from infancy in he home. What's your point? It takes farm more than being raised outside of the wild to domesticate an animal.
| Quote: |
| imagine that you were cooped in a cage and someone comes up and has a psychic connection to you... You wouldn’t put that in jeopardy if you had a person or animal to keep you company wouldn’t you? |
More than anything else, I think, I'd warn you against anthropomorphizing animals too much. It's a natural thing to do, but you have to realize that however much you try to humanize it, it's NOT another person.
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Shiari
Moderator
Joined: 26 Apr 2008
Posts: 227
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| Posted: Fri 06 Mar 2009 11:59 Post subject: |
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I'll phrase this more clearly:
People who are not working for the zoo are not allowed into the exhibits. Not everyone working at the zoo is allowed into exhibits. It is completely against the rules every zoo must follow and the keepers would be fired, and the zoo fined, for putting you in danger and the animal in danger. Zoo staff are terribly protective of their animals and *someone* would have turned in this illicit activity.
Even if you DO have a bond with the animal, it is still wild, and still unpredictable. Everyone who *actually* works with big cats understands the dangers. |
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Eternity
Dragonstar
Joined: 05 Mar 2009
Posts: 47
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| Posted: Sat 14 Mar 2009 5:23 Post subject: |
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Just a thought: do you really believe that you could keep a wild, independent animal TRULY happy in captivity?
Think about animals in zoos. Their natural habitat is mimicked to almost perfection, but do you think that they are really, truly happy? |
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Jasriella
Shining Dragonstar
Joined: 19 Nov 2008
Posts: 1709
Location: Minot, ND
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| Posted: Sat 14 Mar 2009 7:43 Post subject: |
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Any type of confinement drives me nuts. Even if its just having to sit indoors all day at school or work. That phrase "having a roof over my head" actually never set well with me unless the weather outside is severe. To be in a cage or replicated environment would be the death of me.
I can't stand walking through zoos. All I have ever gotten from the animals is a void feeling or despair. Even with the ones that have the recreated environments. No doubt within a few hours they were able to explore their
entire home to find that they were trapped and could go no further. And then to add on to the horrible realization, finding out that there are strange creatures that poke at you through bars or bang on glass for the sheer amuzement of wathcing you squirm. No wonder the handlers have to sedate the predatorial animals and take away what nature had given them to hunt to keep themselve from being mauled. I'd do the same.
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Hyraxylos
Shining Dragonstar
Joined: 13 Jun 2007
Posts: 805
Location: Atlanta, GA
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| Posted: Tue 17 Mar 2009 11:55 Post subject: |
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| Eternity wrote: |
Just a thought: do you really believe that you could keep a wild, independent animal TRULY happy in captivity?
Think about animals in zoos. Their natural habitat is mimicked to almost perfection, but do you think that they are really, truly happy? |
The animals want food and comfortable living conditions, for the most part. One of those comfortable living conditions involves the freedom to move around. So long as the enclosure is large enough, it shouldn't matter at all that an enclosure even exists.
| Galadreil wrote: |
| Any type of confinement drives me nuts. Even if its just having to sit indoors all day at school or work. That phrase "having a roof over my head" actually never set well with me unless the weather outside is severe. To be in a cage or replicated environment would be the death of me. |
I feel similarly, especially in city areas or suburbs near cities (like the one I live in right now  ), but at least I'm not restricted from doing whatever I want to BEYOND walking around outside and communing comfortably with nature like I did while visiting at Landmark up north. I'm content though because my cage isn't too small. To an extent we're ALL caged up somehow, and I say thank goodness for that because if not for the confinements of gravity, our atmosphere would discorporate into the great infinite and our bodies would <family-unfriendly content censored>.
| Quote: |
I can't stand walking through zoos. All I have ever gotten from the animals is a void feeling or despair. Even with the ones that have the recreated environments. No doubt within a few hours they were able to explore their
entire home to find that they were trapped and could go no further. And then to add on to the horrible realization, finding out that there are strange creatures that poke at you through bars or bang on glass for the sheer amuzement of wathcing you squirm. No wonder the handlers have to sedate the predatorial animals and take away what nature had given them to hunt to keep themselve from being mauled. I'd do the same. |
When my family visited the "Asia" section of Disney's Animal Kingdom a while back, we observed some rather interesting behaviors from the tigers there. The tiger place consists of a couple of medium-sized fields with grass, shrubs, trees, a very large swimming pool, and some Indian-looking "ruins". The viewing area that people walk through is a narrow walled-off bridge-thing that goes over the pool and has windows on either side for viewing the tigers. One window of the enclosure is almost level with the ground, and is the most favored spot for the resident tigers to gather.
This provided easy enough opportunity to read the huge cats, and I didn't read any sort of despair or depression at all. The closest I could observe was that same boredom that all cats seem to exhibit. What was really remarkable however was this slight attitude of pity towards the viewers. It ran along the lines of, "You poor absurd primates. Not only do you lack tails, striped fur, and night-vision, but you're also trapped in that tiny little enclosure which has nothing but windows put there so that you can all amuse me with your antics.  " There weren't similar reactions from other animals directed at people, but they didn't seem all that depressed to me.
Of course that's not how EVERY zoo is like, which I think is unfortunate. My feeling is that zoos that don't have the money and resources to afford making the enclosures seem less like enclosures (or that it's the people who are really caged  ) shouldn't exist at all. Since we've got nature programs and videos and such, do we really need that many zoos anymore?
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