Since When Are Animals the Enemy?

When Godzilla destroyed Tokyo that was harsh. When the “Cloverfield” monster took a bite out of the Big Apple that was unnecessary. When Jaws chomped that woman’s leg, now, that was just mean. But when a killer whale attacks a trainer or a chimpanzee attacks its owner, I find it hard to blame the animal.

Recently there have been incidents of trained animals attacking humans. You have cases like Montecore, the white tiger who attacked Roy, of Siegfried and Roy, because something caught his attention in the audience. There’s also Star, a bear in a Russian circus who was forced to ice skate and attacked the circus director during rehearsal. And most recently, Tillikum, a killer whale who killed his trainer when he dragged her underwater for
40 minutes.

This does not surprise me. What does surprise me is that people debate afterwards about what to do with the animal. Here’s an idea. Take him out of captivity and allow him to go back to his natural habitat where he never bothered anyone.

Let’s be honest here, folks. I don’t remember the last time a killer whale crawled out of the ocean, jumped into the above ground pool in your backyard, and lurked in the shadows waiting to pounce on you when you were most vulnerable.

Nor do I remember the last time a chimpanzee climbed down from his tree, walked to your house, and asked you if you could throw a diaper on him and treat him like your child. This just does not happen. If it did happen, then I could see us blaming those scheming, conniving chimps for taking advantage of our hospitality.

What does happen is that we mighty, smart, superior human beings go stomping into the jungle, or the ocean, and pluck these animals out of their homes so that Joe Somebody can spend hundreds of dollars at the zoo and the seaquarium with his family entertaining his children and eating hot dogs. The saddest part is that when these terrible attacks happen, we humans vilify these animals and question if they should be euthanized for being too dangerous?

We humans have it wrong. Sharing the planet with these amazing creatures does not mean enslaving them and forcing them to perform tricks for our entertainment like jesters in our courts. It means appreciating and respecting them enough to admire them at a distance, in their natural habitat, and protecting those habitats so that our children may get to enjoy these animals as well.

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