[Gpdd] [MISC] St. Augustine Zoo/Croc food
Muddy Rats
muddy.rats at gmail.com
Sat Mar 17 13:15:10 EDT 2007
One thing that bothers me about this is that it was in a newspaper far
away from Florida - Denver, Colorado. So how is it an appropriate human
interest story? Kids read newspapers, and I don't feel it's
appropriate. I'm highly offended by it. I wouldn't dare show it to
Dani, nor read it to her. But then again, I don't find it appropriate
that I should have to explain STD's to a 9 year old after she hears a
commercial on TV about them either. I do plan on emailing the local
paper that ran the blurb to let them it was offensive and
inappropriate. I know it won't do any good as I'm not even a subscriber
to the paper since I think it's only good for animal droppings.
I have been to Florida several times. My grandmother took me many years
ago to see the Seminoles wrestling gators. This was in the days before
casinos, and all that, so it was a major source of income for the
Seminoles. I was unfortunate enough to witness the wrestler get his
thumb bit off. It wasn't fun to watch, even before the guy got his
thumb bit off - and yes, they did feed them chicken - the same chicken
we would buy in a local market to prepare at home.
I realize it's survival of the fittest, and the food chain of command in
the wild - but I have never seen a gator, or croc, chasing after a
guinea pig to eat it. The zoo is in the US, and in the US guinea pigs
are pets, and were domesticated as such many years ago.
One important thing can be done - make people aware of the croc's diet,
and cut down on the visitors to this zoo... thus cutting down on the
zoo's income and support.
There are plenty of flaws with the response Jaime received. Any breeder
will tell you that there's no major money to be made in humane and good
breeding. Even in the breeding of mice and rats, they're sold for
pennies.... you'd have to have a lot of rodents to sell to make that
kind of money. With mice and rats, it's easier, but still not all that
profitable if they sell for pennies, or less each. But with guinea
pigs, they need more space, don't have litters as large. Chicken
probably costs more, but not if it was purchased in bulk, and quality
didn't matter since it's not for human consumption. I don't believe
that there's a breeder breeding guinea pigs to sell as feeders. There
may be a breeder selling some culs (animals unfit as pets due to birth
defects), but that's not enough to support the diet of a bunch of
crocs. I am more likely to believe that the crocs are being fed piggies
that were going to be euthanized due to the lack of homes, or were
euthanized for that reason when sold to the zoo. There's too many
animals that prefer their diet to be living vs. dead when they consume
it and that's part of how they get their exercise. Anyone selling 1,000
piggies to feed the crocs at the zoo is only receiving about a few
pennies a pig - multiply that by 1,000 and it's not enough to pay too
many bills after you take into account the overhead, food, etc. for
raising the supposed feeder piggies.
I have been to my local animal mill. Believe me, if this guy could make
money selling any of his stock to a croc farm in Florida, he would - and
he isn't. He sells to the local PetStupids and to private individuals.
Even with all the critters he is breeding and selling, he's still not rich.
I had a friends a few years back - a married couple with kids. They
thought they could run a business - breeding rats and mice as feeders.
The business didn't last long, and wasn't at all profitable. They
couldn't even make the monthly bills, and ended up having their house
foreclosed on them, and getting divorced. They didn't start this
company, but rather bought one that was started up by someone else. I
have a friend who thought she could get 2 rats to breed so she could
cheaply feed her snakes - she didn't get any snake food from them. She
ended up spending money to feed the rats who never made food for the snakes!
FWIW, the feeder piggies could only be humanely euthanized if they were
humanely bred - which they obviously aren't if they're bred as feeders!
No one would go to the expense of humanely euthanizing an animal when
it's being used as food for another animal.
Thank you for following through with this Jaime - and the petition as
well. Well done!
I'm now crawling back to my sick bed.
Lori
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