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gemfyre*scoffs sushi*
Shouldn't eat too much, roast for dinner. And a few birthday pressies YAY!!
Someone left that freaking musical candle on the windowsill again. It "sings" like the battery is going flat or something. When it gets warm it plays "Happy Birthday" in this slow, weird, horror movie style and I HATE the bloody thing. I makes my teeth grate and chills my blood. *shudder*
I stuck it in the freezer. Die embodiment of evil candle!! No WAY am I having that evil thing on my birthday cake.
Woah!! That piece had a bit more wasabi than usual. *sinuses clear* mmmm wasabi.
I think that's enough for now. Sushi is great, you make 4 rolls and you have enough food to last the day!
Anyone know how to clean a sushi mat? I have some avacado squished between the slats.
Okay, I have some books out here now to hopefully get me motivated to do my essay. I have my E&C reader, which has the journal references in it (should grab the other paper out of my file too), the Evolution textbook, the Evolution coffee table book that I read cover to cover earlier in the year (GREAT book) and Chuckie Darwin's Origin of Species, which I bought with the intention of reading but being late 1800's the style is a bit awkward to just sit and read.
*bops to kitschy 80's Mel & Kim song*
Eww, I got tuna and avacado in my hair. Lucky I didn't wash it last night eh?
Ah, something interesting to write about
This article prompted this discussion which I felt needed a reply from me as well.
There's nothing groundbreaking here. Of COURSE ideally these animals need a lot of space but what can zoos do? They can't afford to buy up huge tracts of land to accomodate these animals. Some zoos do manage to secure more land than others (ala Western Plains) but others (such as Perth Zoo) are kinda stuck between a rock and a hard place for space. And game reserves? No good, poachers and farmers that just don't give a shit continue to kill the animals.
What zoos need to do (and many are doing it these days VERY well) is to make the available enclosure as close to home as possible for the animal and develop enrichment activities so the animal doesn't get bored. A good zoo will also encourage natural behaviours and do as little possible domestication wise. Perth Zoo DOES train some of it's animals so medical treatment is easier (the elephants and rhino are trained to lift their feet etc for checkups and the cheetah is used to human contact so instead of having to anaesthetise her for any minor checkup they can just do it and she will behave), but this is to reduce overall stress on the animals and keepers. They also have strategies to prepare animals for release into the wild, such as training the numbats to be wary of potential predators by training them to be so (a dark shadow is dragged over the top of the cage, the sound of a bird of prey is played and a loud noise is made to startle the animals, therefore they associate the shadow and sound with something bad and hide accordingly). This method of training has been successful so far.
Of course, numbats are small animals so don't need an awfully wide range like the sumatran tigers or indian elephants at Perth, but they still require the same complicated care so they are not overly stressed and are able to be reassimilated into the wild.
When I was younger (and of course more naive) I was of the "let them all free" camp. I can't believe some full grown adults still believe in this. Let's see, we free everything in all the zoos in Australia. Most of the animals die because they cannot live without zoo care in an urban environment, our feral animal problem skyrockets, native animals are decimated. Clever. In England an extremist animal rights group set free all the mink from a fur farm. The mink then proceeded to prey on an endangered species in the area and almost drive it to extinction. Clever.
Unfortunately, until humans become a lot smarter and less selfish and poachers and such cease to exist, large animals will have to be kept in zoos to preserve them. Fortunately these days most zoos have elaborate records of genetic lines so the gene pool stays as wide as possible, and the animals are given the best possible care and enrichment to make up for the lack of space.
That article is very biased. Sure, things may not be perfect but I want whoever wrote it or whoever made this "groundbreaking discovery" to offer a more plausible alternative.
Shouldn't eat too much, roast for dinner. And a few birthday pressies YAY!!
Someone left that freaking musical candle on the windowsill again. It "sings" like the battery is going flat or something. When it gets warm it plays "Happy Birthday" in this slow, weird, horror movie style and I HATE the bloody thing. I makes my teeth grate and chills my blood. *shudder*
I stuck it in the freezer. Die embodiment of evil candle!! No WAY am I having that evil thing on my birthday cake.
Woah!! That piece had a bit more wasabi than usual. *sinuses clear* mmmm wasabi.
I think that's enough for now. Sushi is great, you make 4 rolls and you have enough food to last the day!
Anyone know how to clean a sushi mat? I have some avacado squished between the slats.
Okay, I have some books out here now to hopefully get me motivated to do my essay. I have my E&C reader, which has the journal references in it (should grab the other paper out of my file too), the Evolution textbook, the Evolution coffee table book that I read cover to cover earlier in the year (GREAT book) and Chuckie Darwin's Origin of Species, which I bought with the intention of reading but being late 1800's the style is a bit awkward to just sit and read.
*bops to kitschy 80's Mel & Kim song*
Eww, I got tuna and avacado in my hair. Lucky I didn't wash it last night eh?
Ah, something interesting to write about
This article prompted this discussion which I felt needed a reply from me as well.
There's nothing groundbreaking here. Of COURSE ideally these animals need a lot of space but what can zoos do? They can't afford to buy up huge tracts of land to accomodate these animals. Some zoos do manage to secure more land than others (ala Western Plains) but others (such as Perth Zoo) are kinda stuck between a rock and a hard place for space. And game reserves? No good, poachers and farmers that just don't give a shit continue to kill the animals.
What zoos need to do (and many are doing it these days VERY well) is to make the available enclosure as close to home as possible for the animal and develop enrichment activities so the animal doesn't get bored. A good zoo will also encourage natural behaviours and do as little possible domestication wise. Perth Zoo DOES train some of it's animals so medical treatment is easier (the elephants and rhino are trained to lift their feet etc for checkups and the cheetah is used to human contact so instead of having to anaesthetise her for any minor checkup they can just do it and she will behave), but this is to reduce overall stress on the animals and keepers. They also have strategies to prepare animals for release into the wild, such as training the numbats to be wary of potential predators by training them to be so (a dark shadow is dragged over the top of the cage, the sound of a bird of prey is played and a loud noise is made to startle the animals, therefore they associate the shadow and sound with something bad and hide accordingly). This method of training has been successful so far.
Of course, numbats are small animals so don't need an awfully wide range like the sumatran tigers or indian elephants at Perth, but they still require the same complicated care so they are not overly stressed and are able to be reassimilated into the wild.
When I was younger (and of course more naive) I was of the "let them all free" camp. I can't believe some full grown adults still believe in this. Let's see, we free everything in all the zoos in Australia. Most of the animals die because they cannot live without zoo care in an urban environment, our feral animal problem skyrockets, native animals are decimated. Clever. In England an extremist animal rights group set free all the mink from a fur farm. The mink then proceeded to prey on an endangered species in the area and almost drive it to extinction. Clever.
Unfortunately, until humans become a lot smarter and less selfish and poachers and such cease to exist, large animals will have to be kept in zoos to preserve them. Fortunately these days most zoos have elaborate records of genetic lines so the gene pool stays as wide as possible, and the animals are given the best possible care and enrichment to make up for the lack of space.
That article is very biased. Sure, things may not be perfect but I want whoever wrote it or whoever made this "groundbreaking discovery" to offer a more plausible alternative.
