i wonder why?
I just read about three spectacled bears in a Leipzig zoo that have lost all of their hair. Apparently its not the first time this is happening in a European zoo. Funny enough, even the clever Germans can't figure out why.
Hmmm.....let me throw a theory or two out there.
First of all, they live in a friggin cage. Let's lock a zookeeper up for just 24 hours and see how nice it feels to be locked in a box. One might think that any living being might get a bit claustrophobic. Claustrophobia, at least in my amateur opinion, is pretty damn stressful.
They come from the Andes mountains in Peru and Ecuador. They live in a completely different climate and have a unique - and natural - diet. Now they can walk about 50 metres in one go, get hand fed food that I bet doesn't come from South America. Diet is a major cause of most skin irritations. What the body can't deal with internally....it chucks it to our bodies largest organ - our skin.
So all these perplexed animal experts can't understand why caged bears could lose their hair. I'm slightly dumbfounded by their dumbfoundedness. Humans tend to think that if they animals have a 'safe' place and get fed that the animals are on some sort of permanent holiday. This is further evidence of how we've strayed from our roots and how undetached we've become from pacha mama.
Here in Bosnia its much worse. We've got bears in 2mx2m cages to attract people to some idiots restaurant. The worse thing is that it works. On Vlasic Mountain, just across the RS border towards Skender Vakuf, some putz entertains and attracts his guests by feeding the bear beer. So we have an alcoholic bear in a box the size of someone's ormar. And we love it. We think its cute. The poor bastard also get the added stress affect of looking at the mountains where he was born and had roamed until some pitiful 'hunter' decided to steal him from his mother. My guess is that mom ended up much worse - probably now a carpet in front of a fireplace.
I'm not one of these nutty animal rights fanatics by any means. But the level of disrespect and ignorance towards wild animals and the importance of balance in the wild is truly astonishing.
I was at a horse farm in Capljina not too long ago. He captured a wolf near Glamoc somewhere and has kept this poor thing in a small cage for 4 years. The 'owner' told me, confused, that he still couldn't tame the wolf and after all this time this wild animal was still afraid of man. Silly dog! What's there to be scared of?
He had nasty cuts on his ears. They were bleeding and flies were congregating on the wound. I asked why he didn't treat it. He said would...but it was hard for the vet to get near him. Imagine that.
I refuse to go to zoos. People think I'm too extreme. How on earth could I go and enjoy another beings captivity? How on earth can parents so blissfully teach their children - directly or indirectly, that this is ok and that the animals are having a party? Animal rescue shelters are one thing. But most zoo's are about prized catches that bring in the big bucks.
I think I'm starting to lose some hair. Empathy syndrome i guess.
