CSotD: Empty chairs and empty cages
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I like this Kevin Siers panel for the message itself but I'm particularly impressed with his ability to make good use of an odd and viral news story.
The story itself is as bizarre in its way as the phenomenon Siers uses it to comment on.
With regards to the actual zoo, it took a lot of sorting out to even come up with a coherent sense of what was going on. Apparently (a word that means, even so, I'm a little unsteady on this), the Copenhagen zoo has a sense that, in order to properly present well-balanced, happy animals, they need to let them breed and then give birth to and raise offspring, so that, therefore you shouldn't give them contraceptives.
But, of course, you can't be guilty of inbreeding and corrupting the gene pool, so the resulting, in this case, giraffe — whom the zookeepers called "Marius" but he never really had an official name and so he really wasn't named "Marius" — has to be put down.
This is the moral equivalent of letting your cat experience "the miracle of birth" and then loading the kittens into a tote sack and heading for the river. Though I realize there was no humane, practical way to let the giraffe, once born, live, I'm not letting the zoo off the hook in the least.
Which makes it hard, because I approve of the overall mission of zoos, both in terms of educating the public and in terms of preserving species, and I approve of intelligent attempts to make them as humane as possible.
But this was not an intelligent attempt, even given the fact that "as humane as possible" has serious limits.
As one zoo director once told me, taking the Siberian tiger out of a metal-and-concrete cage and putting him in a rock-and-grass exhibit space is primarily a cosmetic change for the benefit of visitors and does very little for an animal that, in his natural habitat, would range over 30 or 40 square miles.
If, he said, they actually gave their animals the habitats they'd prefer, you would never see them, because avoiding being seen is what they would prefer and what they devote most of their efforts to achieving in the wild.
So you have to start with the idea that, with the qualified exception of the San Diego Wild Animal Park, all zoos do an inherently crappy job of providing animals with ideal habitats.
That said, the continued existence of wild bison is due in large part to the fact that the Bronx Zoo (A) created a herd of them back in the 19th century and (B) gave a damn, while, in more recent times, the Denver Zoo has been instrumental in preserving Mongolia's wild horses and conducts other serious, on-going efforts on behalf of wildlife.
Meanwhile, the controversy also fed into the notion that meat is something that comes in little styrofoam trays at grocery stores.
Again, the Danish zoo's attempts at education were clumsy to say the least, and it would probably have been better to simply slip the remains of His-Name-Wasn't-Actually-Marius to the lions rather than announce the fact.
But it's not like the meal was a break from their usual tofu-and-kale diet. Vegans have a little more standing in this outrage, but, come on. Lions are carnivores. Meat is … well, I don't want to spoil your illusions, but there is a "circle of life" out there in the ecosystem.
So we have, on the one hand, a zoo with a completely screwed up operating philosophy and a general public that managed to focus their outrage on irrelevancies and logical fallacies.
As for the metaphorical zoo in which we dwell, we seem to analyze it with an equal lack of rigor on both sides, and Siers made brilliant creative use of this ridiculous situation, portraying a completely screwed up economic system in which a gentle, compliant middle class is being sacrificed for the benefit of a self-satisfied looking predator who doesn't have to lift a paw because he is so well-served by inexplicably misguided policies that work entirely to his benefit.
It is rare to see a cartoon that plays two such totally unrelated items in a way that achieves such conceptual congruency.
Speaking of endangered species
Today's Mark Trail brought up something of which I had not been aware.
I know Putin has moved to preserve the Siberian tigers but haven't heard he's been vocal on behalf of these creatures, though, granted, those that remain seem mostly to be outside of Russia.
Still, a 95% loss is more than unconscionable, as has been the worldwide silence on the topic. I'm honestly surprised.
WWF is on the case, but as they note on that page, "A distinctive bulbous nose makes the saiga an unlikely pin-up for the conservation movement."
Well, there ya go. Harp seals are not endangered, but they are darling.
Still, if people can get behind something as odd-looking as a manatee, they should be able to sympathize with the poor saiga.
And I wonder, when it comes to the wonders of saiga horns and bear galls and rhino horn, do the champions of alternative medicine simply avert their eyes the way NFL fans watch the game and try not to think about concussions?
Or am I missing (honest question) an ongoing attempt to educate people in Asian countries about the folly of their superstitious beliefs?
Road trip time!
Most comic fans knew this joint exhibit was in the offing. Here's the announcement.
The art of Richard Thompson and Bill Watterson at the Billy Ireland Museum in Columbus is, for comics fans, too good to pass up, and March 22 to August 3 is a pretty good window of opportunity.
I don't know if either of the above strips are going to be there, but you should.
Be there, that is.
After which, I guess you'll know.
Mike Peterson has posted his "Comic Strip of the Day" column every day since 2010. His opinions are his own, but we welcome comments either agreeing or in opposition.
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