#bad zoos

[saint-nevermore]

this keeps appearing on my dash and i understand animal handling isnt exactly common knowledge, but its shocking just how many people who dont know anything about husbandry are insisting this is funny because "well, it isnt good animal care to let a duck be eaten!" or because the pelican "deserves" it.

pelicans are highly oppurtunistic predators that eat pretty much any prey that fits in their mouths, but especcially fish and chicks. why on earth would you house a pelican or let it roam in the same enclosure as its natural pret? this isnt fair to both the pelican OR the other birds - since its worth mentioning pelicans can and will eat adult birds as well. in a good facility worth its weight this could never feasibly even happen to have to intervene with. this aviary is also horribly inadequete even for ducklings - every aviary ive visited that allowed visitors and animals to share the same paths has a ludicrous amount of space with the vast majority of it being inaccessible shrubbery and habitat. there isnt ANY water visible here for the waterfowl, and the lack of natural spots means these birds genuinely seem to have little to nowhere to go to avoid people, or indeed the predators that share the same space. not to mention those hard floors can lead to bumblefoot. calling this housing "inadequete" is an understatement.

this isnt the only time this has happened at this facility, i found *another* video from the same place of the pelican swallowing a pigeon, and its clear the pelicans are allowed to roam despite the dangers to smaller birds and itself. (side note - look at how hyperflexed and twisted the jaw is held here. this is undoubtably very painful.)

the main concern here is the unnecessary force and roughness used in restraining and moving the bird. in the video with the pigeon, the pelicans clearly react to being herded just fine, so theres no reason to quite literally drag the bird by its beak. although holding the beak is standard when restraining large billed birds like pelicans and herons, this is often a careful and relaxed hold, and they should absolutely NOT be pulled by their beak. if they can handle the birds well enough to grab its beak and wrangle food out it's throat, they can properly restrain and carry it. the bill is also held firmly shut, when it should be held carefully and somewhat open so the bird can breathe. i have watched wildlife vets manage to restrain and move wild adult SWANS without resorting to dragging them by their face. it is wholly unacceptable to handle a captive, TAME bird this way. if you wouldnt move a dog by grabbing them by their snout, why on earth is this okay or funny on a pelican?

on that note, the way the duckling (and to an extent, the pigeon in the other video) is just tossed to the ground is absolutely dangerous and negligent. the experience of almost being eaten is stressful enough without risking potential injury from hitting solid ground. its very clear no one in this scenario knows how to handle birds, since there was nothing stopping the worker just...putting the duck down gently? its tossed like its a hot potato.

circling back to the pelican being dragged by its jaw - pelicans have very narrow, thin jaw bones. although the upper bill is more rigid, the lower jaw is adapted to flex to accomodate swallowing large prey, but that also means improper handling could sprain or fracture the jaw. just take a look at how delicate the bones of the jaw are and tell me if it looks like a good idea to drag this bird by its beak.

similarly, this can also injure the birds neck especcially if the pelican panicked or pulled too much to try and escape. often if a bird like this isnt being restrained gently by its beak, it's neck will be held to prevent the animal hurting itself by trying to pull away. there are times where the bill is held in such a way the pelicans' neck is being bent at worrisome angles and at one point it even appears to be partially lifted off the ground. i have seen a video of an ostrich decapitating itself when its head got stuck and it panicked. this is incredibly dangerous, and to quote a great comment i saw once, its not about what happened, its about what could have happened.

the insistance of pelicans being these chaotic monsters is disturbing to say the least. they are animals taking part in extremely average behaviours. the fact OP has a whole tag for "not trusting pelicans" (its a BIRD??) tells me enough about why people by and large will turn a blind eye to being told this is NOT just a funny pelican getting told off. yall NEED to think about what you actually see when you see videos like this, and put aside immature human biases like calling a literal bird evil or thinking it deserves this. pelicans are beautiful, intelligent, often incredibly docile birds that deserve respect and appropriate care. its thinking like this that leads to a lack of accountability when animals are treated poorly and lets horrible practices go unchecked.

i am not a professional, i am simply a hobbyist who loves birds and wants to get into aviculture in the future. i have no credentials or training or schooling. but if i could figure this out, chase a suspicion something is wrong here, and do a literal crumb of research, everybody can.

closing note, this is apparently a zoo in the Shaangxi province in China, but i couldnt find anything more specific than that. do not make a clown of yourself by being xenophobic. poor animal welfare laws are a definite issue but shit like this happens everywhere and dumbass racist comments do nothing.

This blog has been telling you not to trust pelicans for over a decade and this is why

[krussyarts]

So that act 2 huh

(original doodle + smth extra under cut)

The gang! "Huh", "wake me up inside by evanescence", "do yuo hav gamez on ur phobne" and "i brought a gun to the rave" anywayy i drew them together

[orcinus-veterinarius]

Learning anything about marine mammal training will make you re-evaluate so much of your relationship with your own pets. There is so much force involved in the way we handle domestic animals. Most of it isn’t even intentional, it just stems from impatience. I’m guilty of it myself!

But with the exception of certain veterinary settings where the animal’s health is the immediate priority, why is it so important to us that animals do exactly what we want exactly when we want it? Why do we have to invent all these tools and contraptions to force them to behave?

When a whale swam away from a session, that was that. The trainer just waited for them to decide to come back. If they flat out refused to participate in behaviors, they still got their allotment of fish. Nothing bad happened. Not even when 20-30 people were assembled for a procedure, and the whale chose not to enter the medical pool. No big deal. Their choice and comfort were prioritized over human convenience.

It’s almost shocking to return to domestic animal medicine afterwards and watch owners use shock collars and chokers and whips to control their animals. It’s no wonder that positive reinforcement was pioneered by marine mammal trainers. When you literally can’t force an animal to do what you want, it changes your entire perspective.

I want to see that mindset extended to our domestic animals.

[kayit-z]

You better find that letter and do something, Felipe minecraft

[kedreeva]

For those of you non-reptile folks out there (or the reptile folks who haven't heard/don't know yet)- "Prehistoric Pets"/"The Reptile Zoo" is one of the worst faces of captive reptile keeping. Jay Brewer, the guy that runs it and faces it on youtube, is basically running the equivalent of a reptile puppy mill, and sensationalizing it for views.

He keeps his animals in enclosures that are far too small for them, participates in mass breeding without care for the health or well-being of the animals involved, including creating morbidly obsese animals to have the "biggest" ones for clout and so that he can breed them as fast and often as possible since they don't get too skinny from being bred too often while being massively overfed. He's also well known for cutting eggs (which by itself is.... eh but-) where he removes the entire top, pulling live babies out, and putting them back in, which is ridiculously dangerous to the baby.

This year he's going to be getting his own television show. I don't know the name of it yet, but given his behavior on youtube - where he purposely elicits stress responses, defensive behaviors, and bite attempts from large reptiles purely for views, with no interest in whether these actions are in the interest of the animal's best welfare - I doubt he is going to improve any. The producers are GOING to try to sensationalize it a la Tiger King.

Please, I am asking you to not support this man or his new show. He represents the worst side of the hobby, the people that have no business being in business, no business keeping the animals he does. Don't spite watch, don't curiosity watch; pirate it someplace if you must, but any views that count toward success of his show only puts more into his pockets to continue doing things he shouldn't, and it's his animals (and the animals his popularity convince others to buy thinking they can do the same as him) that pay the price for it.

Please understand that he is NOT a good representative of the reptile keeping community, and that so many people do not find his keeping, handling, or practices acceptable. Despicable would be a better word.

[sen-ya]

First off, I love ur art so much. Ur style is so amazing and the stories u come up with are so fun (or sad) and I think they're incredible.

Second, Law and Luffy at the pool headcanon bc it's over 100 degrees where I am rn. Luffy cannonballs in before they even set up their chairs and Law just stares at him. He refuses to get in, so Luffy has to surprise him and push him in. He's mad, but then Luffy laughs and all is forgiven because he is the sucker for Luffy's laugh/smile.

Ahhh hello!! Tysm for the kind words! 😭❤️ funny story it is ALSO 100 degrees where I am and I have spent today recovering from dehydration and heat exhaustion 🫠🫠

[minty364]

DPXDC Prompt #84

The GIW had been getting bolder lately and Danny didn’t like it. Turns out Danny’s gut feeling was right and he falls into a trap and gets caught by them. The GIW were ecstatic to have finally caught the ghost boy. They decided to brag about their accomplishment by posting an article about it. They kept Danny in captivity, turns out they weren’t dissecting ghosts but keeping them in a giant zoo. The Justice League finds the article the GIW posted and decides to raid this zoo after Constantine recognizes the ghost in the picture being the king of the infinite realms.

[maybebitterxox]

The pitch for Buffy The Vampire Slayer was probably just “What if there was a girl who could kill vampires. And she can Never Catch A Fucking Break”

[local-hellhound-steals-spaghetti]

I’m by no means any sort of expert on any animal’s behavior so please feel free to ignore this random observation/ opinion.

But something I find interesting about people defending Moo Deng’s treatment is the frequent assertion that her keepers love her, as if that excuses everything. I honestly don’t doubt that her keepers love her, but that doesn’t mean their actions are appropriate.

To me it’s reminiscent of someone cornering and petting a dog against it’s will because “I just LOVE dogs!!!”. Loving the animal doesn’t mean you can’t inadvertently harm them with your actions.

Idk, I just have a lot of feelings on this and this was my attempt to sum them up. Hope it makes some sort of sense 😅

Oh yeah tell me about it! I appreciate you sharing this because I feel like I'm going insane when I see people being given the same information as I have and drawing a totally different conclusion from it.

Like... it's not okay just because they harass her a little bit. That's... not how that works.

Also I find the "trust the keeper" argument super ironic coming from someone who worked with dolphins - the species in human care that EVERYONE has an opinion on. And you'll tell people "hey, trust me on this. I see these dolphins every day. They participate in their own health care and don't do something if they don't want to. They are objectively in good welfare based on all the current data we have of what that looks like. I do behaviour records every day to prove this. And if I didn't think they were doing well, I'd be fighting tooth and nail to improve their lives or I would leave my job." (which I have done, btw)

And I'll still be told I'm enslaving dolphins and I do it for the money (when it was free labour - yay for animal industry exploitation - or absolutely bugger all). Trust the keeper... unless I watch a biased documentary packed full of misinformation. Then I know *more* than the keeper will and the keeper is just a moron who doesn't need a science degree and years of unpaid internship experience for this job!

But if it's a cute animal that has no preconceptions established of their welfare in human care? It's free game to coo over. Sure the keeper just dropped that squirming, panicking baby hippo he was trying to force into a tub! But he has so much experience because someone on reddit said so! It's actually all just desentisation! (not how desensisation works ever)

Can you tell I'm frustrated? Yeah...

Anyway I am usually the first in line to defend a zoo and their keepers - I know it's not easy to work in a zoo that's underresourced or in an education vaccum. But I'm going to call out bad handling when I see it. Especially when it's reinforced by social media clout and is being encouraged to continue by people justifying it as "desenitisation" or "actions of an experienced keeper."

[ksodirty]

[thevillainsfangirl]

People say they want weird, but then use "weirdo" and "weird" as insults/to describe bad things and "normal" as a compliment/to describe good things.

People say they want weird, but then have the most strict Puritan mindset about art and fictional things.

People say they want weird, but then call actually weird things "cringe" or immoral.

People say they want weird, but they really don't. They want the most tame, mainstream, and socially acceptable "weird" so they can call themselves "weird" and look Different™.

[aroaceqoutes]

As an asexual, watching Rivals is A NIGHTMARE. But for David Tennant.. Its worth it.

[doomcogs]

low key glad that the whole "moo deng is actually in a very abusive enclosure" thing got called out by actual people who have gone to the zoo / are from the area, like seeing a baby hippo be silly and instantly assume "oh yeah these non whites are gonna abuse her for internet clout and are keeping her in an unsafe enclosure and shes gonna develop to be violent" as if the US doesn't also have absolutely shit zoos (seaworld anyone?).

just cause it isn't one of the few "world renowned" zoos in mainland USA doesn't mean it's run by your racist caricatures of uncivilized not-whites, jfc.

and also, there are probably areas to improve upon in the enclosure, but the zero research before saying "actually this is the worst and she is suffering, all because i don't know the zoo cause its in some third world country i don't bother to investigate about" (and I mean even when its in a third world coutnry it doesn't really mean its instantly bad? people are passionate about keeping animals healthy if they're qualified then even with low resouces the animals will be happy and safe, but again, no research before throwing out, it's 'foreign so its bad' ideas.)

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

it's been a little bit but i gotta say. that diary of a wimpy kid punchline was SO GOOD. like you /told us/ that the first two were a set up for a joke and yet it still landed absolutely perfectly. like. /wow/ i was CACKLING and i still giggle a little whenever i think about it. just phenomenal execution

Comedy comes in threes, and sometimes that means two great high fives before slapping a diary of a wimpy kid crossover in your hand.

[insomniac-arrest]

*sees a carnivore at the zoo* they’re always sleeping!!! Yeah, they eepy, you got a problem with that? A little nap in the sun? A full day of Animal Pile Snooze? We put beasts in the situations we wish to see in the world.