Mondo Times Health Poll Archive

This poll ran from January 7 to 13, 2008.

Mondo Stars Poll Results

"Tigers simply do not belong in zoos." True 672/46% False 776/54%

Votes: 1448

Marc Bekoff, Professor of Ecology and and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Colorado in Boulder, from a letter to the editor published in the Boulder Daily Camera on December 31, 2007.

Bekoff was commenting on the events of December 27, 2007 at the San Francisco Zoo, when a 300-pound Siberian tiger named Tatiana escaped from its enclosure, which is surrounded by a 15-foot-wide moat and 20-foot-high walls. The tiger killed a 17-year-old and mauled two others before being shot and killed by police officers.

Bekoff wrote: "These innocent victims suffered because large carnivores simply do not belong in zoos, and neither should these sentient and emotional beings be shipped here and there as if they were couches. Tigers and other animals have a point of view on what happens to them, and they don't like being treated as if they are inanimate objects. So it's not all surprising that at some point when they regain their freedom they do what's natural to them. The aren't bad or evil; they're highly evolved natural-born killers who don't like being imprisoned. When will zoos learn this lesson?"

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