Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you Should Know
Speaker 1: from House Stuff Works dot Com? Hey, I'm welcome to
Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with me. Is always this
Speaker 1: Charles W. Chuck Bryant that makes this stuff you should know?
Speaker 1: You know what? And saw Ronnie millsap this weekend. Shut up,
Speaker 1: I swear to guy. Really? Yeah, he's still alive. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: he just had he just released a new gospel album.
Speaker 1: Is he the Blind Guy? Yeah? Okay, yeah. Where where
Speaker 1: did he play? I've got to know. Spindale, North Carolina.
Speaker 1: I can say honestly that I've been to Spindale, North Carolina.
Speaker 1: Did you go there to see him? Yeah? You mean
Speaker 1: he's a big fan actually, and he's spent half an
Speaker 1: hour talking about his life. That guy's had it rough man. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you should check him out. He's interesting. I mean he
Speaker 1: was part of my childhood for sure. You should have gone.
Speaker 1: He played some old it. But he actually has a
Speaker 1: podcast in case you Yeah, he's got a podcast. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's pretty good too. It's him like telling stories, talking
Speaker 1: and then playing a song and like he'll talk to
Speaker 1: somebody like off camera or off mike or whatever, like
Speaker 1: what did I forget or something like that, and then
Speaker 1: you'll hear something muffled and we're like, oh, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: and he'll start playing. Is it called millsappen? That's what
Speaker 1: I call it. I think it's called like the Ronnie
Speaker 1: Millstap Show or something. Yeah, and we met him too. Actually,
Speaker 1: of course you're like eight people there. You could know
Speaker 1: it was packed. We definitely skewed the median age tremendously. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there was a lot of old folks there, but went
Speaker 1: to Dollywood right afterwards. We were definitely the only people
Speaker 1: from Atlanta there for sure. Cool. Yeah, Chuck, I love
Speaker 1: that that intro. Thanks Chuck. Yes, have you ever seen
Speaker 1: a chimpanzee masterbait? Uh? Yeah, I have you have. You're
Speaker 1: not the first person I met who's seen that? What
Speaker 1: you saw it at the zoo? Uh? Yeah? I mean
Speaker 1: is there any other answer than yes it was at
Speaker 1: a zoo. If I say it was hit my friend
Speaker 1: Roger's house, authorities are going to show up at you
Speaker 1: have seen that. I've never seen it. I think you've
Speaker 1: seen on YouTube. See. I think that that is a
Speaker 1: normal behavior, as I understand that they are primates after all,
Speaker 1: as are we. Um. But I think that you could
Speaker 1: make an argument that there's such thing as doing it
Speaker 1: too much among chimpanzees. And if you did notice that
Speaker 1: your chimpanzee was abusing himself a little too much, you
Speaker 1: could make a case that that chimpanzee was experiencing zookosis.
Speaker 1: You just dropped the mic, Josh just left the room literally,
Speaker 1: thank you good night. That's it. Yeah, zukosis, man, that's
Speaker 1: when animals in captivity start doing strange things like uh
Speaker 1: pascing like a bearable paste in a circle for hours
Speaker 1: on end, or a chimp might abuse himself, or a
Speaker 1: make the Saints cry. Cheetah might uh can like a
Speaker 1: bathe itself too much like self groom, how cats do
Speaker 1: like lick rash like holes in their body and stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's even worse stuff too. Um. A guy named Bill
Speaker 1: Traverse who's an actor from the UK who appropriately enough
Speaker 1: was in a movie called Born Free uh he uh.
Speaker 1: He was an animal rights activist as well. In he
Speaker 1: coined the term zukosis um and it described some pretty
Speaker 1: horrific behavior. Like you said, a lot of it is
Speaker 1: found in the wild as well. But it's just too repetitive.
Speaker 1: It's over and over and over again. It's constant. Like
Speaker 1: animals groom in the wild, but they don't groom until
Speaker 1: they have sore spots on their skin. Um. There's other
Speaker 1: stuff that they don't normally do in the wild, like
Speaker 1: smear their feces on, you know, the windows of their enclosures. Um,
Speaker 1: self mutilation, like chewing their own tailor leg um. There's
Speaker 1: a there's a kind of bulimia that some primates exhibit,
Speaker 1: uh in captivity, where they vomit, eat their vomit, and
Speaker 1: then vomit again. Uh, just over and over. I don't
Speaker 1: maybe out of boredom, maybe out of frustration or anger.
Speaker 1: But the point is you see this among animals and captivity.
Speaker 1: You don't see this kind of behavior among animals in
Speaker 1: the wild, which indicates what some people would consider a
Speaker 1: problem with zoos. Let's get down to it, discuss. Yeah,
Speaker 1: our zoo's good or bad. And obviously we've read the
Speaker 1: same article, so you can make the case for both, right, Yeah, Well,
Speaker 1: I guess we should start with good since we've already
Speaker 1: indicated a hint of the bad, just a hint, just
Speaker 1: a hint. The good let's talk about some pros on
Speaker 1: the zoo side. Um, zoos have gotten a lot better
Speaker 1: in the last four thousand years, and a whole lot
Speaker 1: better in the last like thirty years from what I've seen.
Speaker 1: Like when I was a kid and went to the
Speaker 1: Atlanta Zoo, it was the tile room with the guerrilla
Speaker 1: in it. And the monkey bars are not the monkey bars,
Speaker 1: the cage bars. Monkey bars were to play on right,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna play they didn't have monkey bars. But I
Speaker 1: mean if if they're the bars to the cage for
Speaker 1: a monkey and closure, they are technically monkey bars. Yeah
Speaker 1: what I'm the low nd on the totem pole, am
Speaker 1: I talking about? Yeah, that's that's a good thing. M uh.
Speaker 1: But they come a long way in the last like
Speaker 1: thirty and forty years and trying to create um more.
Speaker 1: The miniature habitats that they normally would live in the
Speaker 1: fences are gone now replaced with like moats, so they
Speaker 1: can't get to you, obviously, because that would be bad.
Speaker 1: Zeus have kind of kept in step with um the
Speaker 1: progress of mental institutions. Yeah, you know, they've gotten a
Speaker 1: lot better. Same with zoos. Apparently, Uh, they used to
Speaker 1: procure animals by going into the wild and taking them.
Speaker 1: Have you ever seen the Mystery Science Theater three thousand
Speaker 1: short catching Trouble? It is so unsettling you should check
Speaker 1: it out. Okay, So they used to go out procure animals,
Speaker 1: like they just go out to the to the planes
Speaker 1: and like get some giraffes and bring them home. They
Speaker 1: don't do that much anymore, although I do have some
Speaker 1: examples we'll get too later where they still actually do that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: now they have keptive breeding programs, yes, or a lot
Speaker 1: of animals are born in a zoo they never knew
Speaker 1: the wild, which he would make the argument that that's
Speaker 1: a lot better than having memory of Oh I used
Speaker 1: to live in a five thousand square mile range and
Speaker 1: now I live in a square feet area. And uh,
Speaker 1: they also, Josh, are trying to help restore endangered species
Speaker 1: with breeding programs and releasing them back into the wild.
Speaker 1: So that's that's some good, right, that is good. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean and the California condor, Right, that's that's one
Speaker 1: that's usually held up as an example. Uh, not too
Speaker 1: long ago, the California condor was on the verge of extinction. Um,
Speaker 1: and the San Diego and Los Angeles, who's got together
Speaker 1: and said, let's let's bring this vulture back. Let's get
Speaker 1: this vulture back up and running. Okay. So they had
Speaker 1: a in flying and they had a captive breeding program,
Speaker 1: and um, they took the population the world, the global
Speaker 1: population of the California condor, which was just relegated to California,
Speaker 1: um from less than two dozen birds to a d
Speaker 1: seventy not self sufficient even better, Chuck is the um
Speaker 1: pair David's deer right? Tell us that story. Well, this
Speaker 1: is a this is a Chinese deer. So what I
Speaker 1: like to say, it is a deer from China. And
Speaker 1: this deer had had had it been bred in captivity
Speaker 1: or was extinct, and then they re introduced it to
Speaker 1: the wild once they bred activity. How how did it happen? Uh,
Speaker 1: they went extinct in the wild, but they happen to
Speaker 1: have a few in captivity. Yeah, and then they eventually
Speaker 1: released I think four into the wild for the first
Speaker 1: time and another self sufficient, self sustaining, which means they
Speaker 1: get it on. Yeah. They're a good looking dear too,
Speaker 1: so they don't they don't have any problems. Now, I
Speaker 1: just mean it's a it's a you know, majestic animal
Speaker 1: good looking. Also, zeos often serve as a better home
Speaker 1: to animals that are like part of traveling circuses. Um,
Speaker 1: you remember our own aquarium here and Atlanta rescued. I
Speaker 1: guess the whale shark, both of their whale sharks. One
Speaker 1: was in Mexico, I think, and like a tank it
Speaker 1: could barely turn around in And now it's got the
Speaker 1: biggest tank in the world. And we swam in it.
Speaker 1: We did. It was cold, big dudes. Yeah. Uh, and
Speaker 1: there's polar bears that have been rescued. Leo. The snow leopard. Yeah,
Speaker 1: taking from Pakistan in two thousand seventh, wasn't was in
Speaker 1: great shape. In two thousand seven in the Bronx Zoo
Speaker 1: said give us that snow leopard, bring him over here. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was my Bronx dude, Oh I got it. Okay,
Speaker 1: what else, Josh? Oh, they have their care We know
Speaker 1: a lot more now we're we're about animals and what
Speaker 1: they need in the kind of habitat. So the care
Speaker 1: taking of the animals and zoos has gotten way way
Speaker 1: better over the years. Yeah. Again, the at the Bronx Zoo,
Speaker 1: they just released there or they just opened their art
Speaker 1: vark exhibit new and improved uh. And apparently art varks
Speaker 1: were notoriously difficult to keep alive and happy because their
Speaker 1: termite diet is really hard to replicate. But they got
Speaker 1: it down to this uh insectivore chow in meat slurry diet,
Speaker 1: which sounds I wonder if it says new and improved
Speaker 1: now featuring live art varks corpses, it's much improved. No
Speaker 1: flies buzzing around them, Josh. The A lot of zoos
Speaker 1: give back financial The Bronx Zoo is channel more than
Speaker 1: three million dollars towards conservation projects in Africa, and sometimes
Speaker 1: they pair with groups like the Nature Conservancy to work
Speaker 1: not even just within their zoo, but in other states
Speaker 1: to uh. I think who is a Toledo zoo was
Speaker 1: working to restore butterfly habitats and Ohio. Yeah, and I
Speaker 1: have to tell you the Toledo Zoo for the size
Speaker 1: town of Toledo, the Toledo Zoo and the Toledo Art
Speaker 1: Museum are world class, really great zoo. Yeah, it puts
Speaker 1: Atlanta Zoo to shame. And then you can go to
Speaker 1: Tony Pacals right, Tony Pacos Pacos hot Dog. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: can get uh. Yeah, the best hot dog on the
Speaker 1: planet from Tony Pacos. Feed it to the I feel
Speaker 1: like cleaner. Uh and Josh, research and scientific research is
Speaker 1: obviously a big part of what zoos do nowadays. Okay,
Speaker 1: so that was like the well I got a step
Speaker 1: for you. Oh sorry, that's right. In two thousand two,
Speaker 1: zoo's participated in two thousand two thirty research projects, conservation projects,
Speaker 1: and more than eighty countries, which is pretty good. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and we shouldn't just poo poo that and go, you know,
Speaker 1: Willie Nilly buy it now. And you have to make
Speaker 1: the case that yes, zoos are helping in some way,
Speaker 1: shape or form. Right, Like, imagine the deer, the pair
Speaker 1: David's deer, right, Um, that would not be around anymore.
Speaker 1: That's that species would be extinct if it weren't for
Speaker 1: conservation efforts among zoos. Right, condor perhaps California condor might
Speaker 1: be gone. Maybe loss of the vulture. Apparently those things
Speaker 1: are huge. I read an article once where this guy
Speaker 1: was um standing on a cliff in California and he
Speaker 1: heard this, and then all of a sudden he just
Speaker 1: got really loud, and right up in front of him,
Speaker 1: this enormous condor just flew up and had been had
Speaker 1: been hunting, I guess, in this canyon and came up
Speaker 1: along the cliff's face and just flew like ten ft
Speaker 1: in front of him. He said, was just huge and
Speaker 1: probably the most thrilling thing that's ever happened to them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're big. I saw a bunch of them in Napa
Speaker 1: Valley on my recent trip, like tons of them. They
Speaker 1: hanging around the vineyards because when you're plowing a vineyard
Speaker 1: you'll dig up like rodents and stuff. So the vultures
Speaker 1: follow along behind the tractor literally and like go down
Speaker 1: there and eat up nice good for them, all right, Chuck,
Speaker 1: let's let's talk about the bad. Yeah, we get the
Speaker 1: ugly and the good down. Yeah, let's talk about the bad.
Speaker 1: You mentioned that the um that zoos are big on conservation, right,
Speaker 1: some say they are well in the US. If you
Speaker 1: are an animal exhibitor, meaning that you are showing animals
Speaker 1: for money, you have to be licensed by the U.
Speaker 1: S t A. Yes, there's about animal exhibitors in the
Speaker 1: US and they range from like the San Diego Zoo
Speaker 1: to the place in Arkansas where you drive through and
Speaker 1: like an Ostrich sticks his head in your car, right
Speaker 1: and go call the police. Exactly. Yeah. Um, about two
Speaker 1: hundred of those hundred are actually members of the American
Speaker 1: Zoological and Aquarium Association. Those are the up and up. Now,
Speaker 1: the a c A has far higher standards than the U.
Speaker 1: S d A for its members. Um is stricter safety requirements. Um.
Speaker 1: It's they forced conservation spending among their members. So um,
Speaker 1: you know, when you're not a member of the a
Speaker 1: c A, those other twenty four or hundred animal exhibitions
Speaker 1: in the US are spending nothing on conservation. And the
Speaker 1: other problem is the members of the a c A
Speaker 1: spend about three percent of their take at the gate
Speaker 1: on conservation every year, which is not that much. I mean,
Speaker 1: it goes kind of far, but not far enough. Uh.
Speaker 1: And also the the I think a hundred and forty
Speaker 1: six reintroduction programs took place in the twentieth century, sixteen
Speaker 1: were successful. Those are the status. You don't get, No,
Speaker 1: they just say we did a hundred forty five programs,
Speaker 1: and most of those programs were um, undertaken by the
Speaker 1: US government. So zoos are getting a lot of credit
Speaker 1: and taking a lot of credit. Actually, um, in the
Speaker 1: public mind, in the public consciousness. They've very successfully carved
Speaker 1: out this place where hey, we're here. It is to
Speaker 1: save the animals, and the idea that they are a
Speaker 1: business that makes money off of people coming in and
Speaker 1: looking at the animals has kind of been washed away,
Speaker 1: although it's still very present. It's zoos are very much businesses,
Speaker 1: you know this condourse. Yeah, only about two thirds of
Speaker 1: those worth strong enough to live. Yeah, that's sad. So
Speaker 1: you don't see that stat on the front end they
Speaker 1: got plowed under the front end of the tractor rather
Speaker 1: than flying in the back end. But they are I mean,
Speaker 1: part of me says these programs only sixteen were successful,
Speaker 1: But I mean they were trying at least, so I
Speaker 1: will give him that. Well, yeah, but I mean, like
Speaker 1: dead animals don't usually give you an e for effort,
Speaker 1: you know. Um. And I think part of the other
Speaker 1: problem is and I don't mean to Hammer's zoos like
Speaker 1: I do, see both sides of this coin. This isn't this,
Speaker 1: This isn't me just like, yeah, we talked about the good,
Speaker 1: now let's really get to it. Um again, there's that
Speaker 1: that pair David Deer. It wouldn't have existed had it
Speaker 1: not been for zoos. But I think by and large,
Speaker 1: if the reason zoos exist is because of encroachment on land,
Speaker 1: Like there's no there's a mind toward conservation, but there's
Speaker 1: not a mind toward preservation, and that's really where the
Speaker 1: mind should be, the mind and the money, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: if you take an elephant and put it into a
Speaker 1: little enclosure, it's gonna go nuts. Elephants are Actually that's
Speaker 1: one of the big ones as far as uh people
Speaker 1: not trying to be a pun master there, but it's
Speaker 1: one of the big animals that people are trying to
Speaker 1: get out of zoos. Like, if you're not going to
Speaker 1: shut down a zoo, at least get the elephants out
Speaker 1: of there. Yeah, And there's actually a website Josh called
Speaker 1: Save Wild Elephants dot com, and um, some zoos are
Speaker 1: starting to get rid of their elephant habitats and and
Speaker 1: they should honestly. I mean, elephants are used to traveling
Speaker 1: about fifty miles a day in large herds, and in
Speaker 1: the in captivity, they're you know, standing around an enclosure
Speaker 1: all day alone or with maybe a buddy or two. Right,
Speaker 1: So they're very social, highly social animals. That travel great distances,
Speaker 1: and no, they shouldn't be in in captivity at all. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The Detroit too actually got rid of their two elephants
Speaker 1: and closed down their exhibit, and the director of the
Speaker 1: zoo said Asian elephants should not live in small groups
Speaker 1: without many acres to rome, and they clearly shouldn't have
Speaker 1: to suffer the winners of the North. That's the other
Speaker 1: thing you know, think about is they're this elephant in
Speaker 1: the Detroit winner Are you kidding me? Now? And even
Speaker 1: worse as a uh, poor elephant called Maggie the elephant
Speaker 1: who in two thousand seven, during a cold snap at
Speaker 1: her home at the Alaska Zoo, was kept for days
Speaker 1: on in and this little inside enclosure because the zookeepers
Speaker 1: were like, she can't go outside, she'll freeze to death.
Speaker 1: And they brought in a treadmill that was big enough
Speaker 1: for and she wouldn't use it. Apparently the public finally
Speaker 1: just went crazy over it because it's a treadmill. Yeah,
Speaker 1: who likes a treadmill? Nobody? Nobody. I've got some more
Speaker 1: horror stories for you, Josh, if you want to hear. Yes,
Speaker 1: Tatiana Siberian tiger at the San Francisco Zoo in two
Speaker 1: thousand seven, escaped the substandard enclosure that she was in
Speaker 1: and was shot to death after she killed a person
Speaker 1: by police. So that happened. Um the Dallas Zoo, a
Speaker 1: guerrilla name Jabari tried to escape by jumping over the
Speaker 1: walls and moats and was fatally shot by police. Witness
Speaker 1: later reported that teenagers were taunting the animal with rocks
Speaker 1: are to escape? Remember that? Yeah, so these little kids
Speaker 1: throwing rocks at this gorilla and then, uh, all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, the gorilla escapes and the cops shoot it down.
Speaker 1: This wouldn't happen if the grillos in the wild. I think.
Speaker 1: Did it get that kid? Though? Didn't he get his
Speaker 1: hands on one of the kids. I don't know. That's
Speaker 1: not that's not in here. Uh. And at the Virginia Zoo, boy,
Speaker 1: they're really doing a great job. They had ten prairie
Speaker 1: dogs die when their tunnel collapsed on them in their habitat.
Speaker 1: They had a rhinoceros drown in the moat that was
Speaker 1: trying to you know, the moat that they used as
Speaker 1: a barrier. Uh. They had a zebra narrowly escaped death
Speaker 1: after jumping into the lion exhibit, which obviously she had passage,
Speaker 1: and another zebra lost her life when she bolted from
Speaker 1: a holding pin, struck offense and broke her neck. So
Speaker 1: they're really, uh, really doing a great job there in
Speaker 1: the Virginia Zoo. Well, I think that kind of demonstrates
Speaker 1: the problem is zebras are too stupid to not run
Speaker 1: in defenses, and if they're next then there shouldn't be
Speaker 1: fences around them. I got another elephant stat too, let's
Speaker 1: hear it, man. They studied records of forty elephants and
Speaker 1: they found that the median lifespan of an African elephant
Speaker 1: in a zoo is sixteen point nine years. Do you
Speaker 1: know what it is on the open plane? Fifty six years? Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's not good. That's quite a drop. It is. Another.
Speaker 1: Another argument that's made in favor of zoos often is
Speaker 1: that they educate the public. Um studies have actually shown
Speaker 1: that people come out of zoos less informed than they
Speaker 1: were before, and um with this kind of false sense
Speaker 1: of security that zoos have it under control and they
Speaker 1: don't really need to do anything to for conservation or
Speaker 1: preservation efforts. So zoos could actually be counterproductive in that regard. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you know on that note they say that, um,
Speaker 1: the signs and the zoos, which you get is a
Speaker 1: little information about their species and diet and where they're from.
Speaker 1: But you never, if you notice, you never get any
Speaker 1: information on their normal behavior in the wild because you're
Speaker 1: not seeing it. So you're not really educating on how
Speaker 1: the animal really is. You're educating them on how they
Speaker 1: are in this small enclosure. And even then it's just
Speaker 1: a sign like this zebra likes to eat this plant.
Speaker 1: This chimp loves to vomit, eat its vomit and vomit again,
Speaker 1: and then spirits poop on the windows. Right, not funny.
Speaker 1: And I did want to mention to how we said
Speaker 1: earlier that they don't go out in the wild and
Speaker 1: catch their animals anymore. Not quite true. In two thousand three,
Speaker 1: the San Diego Wild Animal Park and Lowry Park Zoo
Speaker 1: captured eleven African elephants elephants elephants a species that is threatened,
Speaker 1: and they captured them from their natural habitat and Swaziland,
Speaker 1: and I guess brought them back to the zoo. And
Speaker 1: then I've got one more really sad one that Jerry
Speaker 1: is going to not listen to. Part of the problem
Speaker 1: in zeus, Josh, is that we like our cute little
Speaker 1: baby animals. What happens to cute little baby animals? They
Speaker 1: grow up, they grow up, and many times they get
Speaker 1: shuffled around after they're not cute anymore. Two different zoos
Speaker 1: moving around, it's not good for an animal. There was
Speaker 1: a chimpanzee named Edith born in the nineteen sixties at
Speaker 1: the St. Louis Zoo, and Edith was a big hit
Speaker 1: because she was a cute little baby. Edith grew up
Speaker 1: like all animals do and wasn't as attractive, so they
Speaker 1: shuffled her to five different facilities over the course of
Speaker 1: the years, eventually landing at a roadside zoo in Texas,
Speaker 1: and after an undercover investigation, they found Edith in a
Speaker 1: filthy concrete pit, hairless, living on dog food. How sad
Speaker 1: is that? That's pretty? Said Jerry. Did you hear that
Speaker 1: she's she's not listening. But I mean, I don't want
Speaker 1: to like throw the gauntlet down too much and say
Speaker 1: think about this when you're going to a zoo, but
Speaker 1: you know, think about this when you go to a zoo.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, if you see an animal pulling its own
Speaker 1: hair out, Yeah, chewing its own tail off, or doing
Speaker 1: other some other bizarre saddening bay. If you should feel
Speaker 1: to that ad and you should tell somebody about it,
Speaker 1: you should contact somebody about it. Um Uh, it's it's
Speaker 1: it's everyone's own choice how they view a zoo, obviously,
Speaker 1: but if it gets to you, then do something about
Speaker 1: And there's plenty of organizations out there that somebody can
Speaker 1: join if they find that they are opposed to the
Speaker 1: concept of zoos absolutely. Uh. Pete also wanted to point
Speaker 1: out there are a few forward thinking zoos, progressive zoos
Speaker 1: that are trying their best to do right, like Monstory Zoos.
Speaker 1: So the Baltimore Zoo, good for you, Detroit Zoo, we
Speaker 1: love Detroit Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium, and the North
Speaker 1: Carolina Zoo are apparently doing a pretty decent job of
Speaker 1: giving back. What was the last one? North Carolina? Okay,
Speaker 1: So Atlanta's not in there? Huh. No, Atlanta's not in there.
Speaker 1: Grant Park, you've been there lately? Um? Year or so ago?
Speaker 1: Two years ago? Um? Have you heard of the lu
Speaker 1: Gen Zoo? No, but I'll bet it's in China. It's
Speaker 1: in Argentina, maybe l u J and maybe it's not Lujon.
Speaker 1: They have an awful zoo where you can go and
Speaker 1: sit on the back of a lion, or get in
Speaker 1: the cage with a tiger and pet the tiger, or
Speaker 1: bottle feed a bobcat and you can do this when
Speaker 1: you pay your fifty bucks. And it is a truly
Speaker 1: terrible thing because you're not supposed to ride lions. No,
Speaker 1: people aren't supposed to interact with these predators like that.
Speaker 1: If the Darwin Awards have taught us anything, that you
Speaker 1: have to sign a thing when you go in there
Speaker 1: saying that if I get killed, then it's not your fault.
Speaker 1: Then it's just thinning the hurt. But I don't usually
Speaker 1: do this. But there is actually an online petition against
Speaker 1: this this place. It's at the petition site dot com
Speaker 1: and they need ten thousand signatures and there even so,
Speaker 1: even if you like zoos, you don't like the Lujon zoo.
Speaker 1: It's not a good thing. And what about Chuck. You know,
Speaker 1: we we talked about zoos. What about aquariums? What about
Speaker 1: sea world? Should a killer whale be kept in a
Speaker 1: little tank? Of course, it's gonna eat it. Strainer at
Speaker 1: some point. Yeah, I've blogged about that. Yeah, that's it's
Speaker 1: a killer whale. Which camp are you? I don't know.
Speaker 1: As far as zoos go, I don't know if I
Speaker 1: want to say every zoo should be shut down, but
Speaker 1: definitely a lot of these animals shouldn't be kept in captivity,
Speaker 1: like elephants. What do you think? I cannot answer. That
Speaker 1: is all in my head. Now, there's always something going
Speaker 1: on on the Stuff you Should Know blogging their Chuck Shure, Josh.
Speaker 1: You can visit the Stuff you Should Know blog anytime
Speaker 1: you like. It's open seven three sixty five. And if
Speaker 1: you want to learn more about animals and captivity, just
Speaker 1: type animals and captivity in the handy search bar at
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com. Which means, of course, it's
Speaker 1: time for listener mail. No, I'm getting in what no
Speaker 1: listener mail today? We have too many things to ask for? Okay, well,
Speaker 1: no listener mail, then what do we have to ask for? Chuck,
Speaker 1: We'll go ahead and mention our T shirt contest that
Speaker 1: we haven't determined the rule for yet. Yeah, we haven't
Speaker 1: determined the rules, but you could get an early start, right, Okay,
Speaker 1: So we're we have a call to all Stuff you
Speaker 1: should Know fans with an artistic bent. Uh, if you
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