Eeeww, that thing is so ugly!!

So said people I know about some animal or other... but to me, somehow, I find them cute, appealing even!! And it's not a "thing" to me; it's a living creature, just like you and me. Just coz it's a different species and doesn't conform to our so-called definition of beauty (which is highly subjective and debatable, by the way) doesn't relegate it to a "thing" status in my books.

I'm more drawn to animal babies than to human babies. Human babies look so... umm... boring. But animal babies are so full of life and from the moment of their birth, a lot of them have to fight to survive. I just found out that hippos normally give birth to one baby and if a mother hippo happens to give birth to 2 babies, she'll only nurse one and abandon the other one to fend for itself (and this baby would most likely die without its mother's care). Survival of the fittest, yes, but imagine in a human's case, both babies would be equally well taken care of.

But that's not to say I hate human babies. I just don't fawn and squeal all over them like most females do. Human babies just don't impress me as much as animal babies do.

**********

I'd like to visit Steve Irwin's Australia Zoo one day. I've recently watched a few of his Croc Diaries program on Animal Planet and I liked what I saw, and would like to see more of his conservation efforts in real life.

One of the main reasons why I dislike going to our local zoos and animal parks is that the animals are not always well taken care of and the condition of the place is sometimes deplorable. The last animal park I had been to was the Animal Safari at A'Famosa Resort in Malacca a few years ago. I hated it coz:

1. The trucks that took visitors around the large wild animal enclosure (where the lions and such animals were housed) were sooooo loud that even a normally placid animal would get stressed, what with a few trucks going round and round the enclosure numerous times every single day. And the trucks released huge amounts of exhaust and kicked up a lot of dust as well. Tell me how an animal, who's used to the sereneness and tranquility of the wild, would not get stressed in these conditions.
2. There were pathetically few shelters/shade for the animals to shade from the sweltering sun in the large animal enclosure.
3. In one of the enclosed buildings called the Chicken Farm (no surprises what I was expecting to see here but wait!), here was what I saw:

• A pair of hornbills (or similar looking large birds) in a cage that was only big enough to fit the both of them, without any room to fly around. There was also a piece of paper brochure that the birds were pecking at, which some visitor had probably thrown in the cage, which could endanger the birds if they were to ingest it.
• A cage containing an aquarium of hedgehogs in the middle of the cage, with a litter of kittens surrounding the aquarium. There was no litter pan in the cage for the kittens to perform their toilet duties. But why were there kittens placed in the same cage as hedgehogs in the first place?????
• A few cages with rabbits, where the rabbits were sleeping/lying in their food trays because presumably it was too uncomfortable to lie on the floor of the cage since there was no towel or padding placed at the bottom of the cage and the spaces between the wiring was about 1 inch x 2 inches and probably cut into their flesh when they laid on it.
• What was most saddening was that the animals looked listless, desolate, and helpless. No properly cared for animal looked like this and IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE A CHICKEN FARM! What are non-fowl animals doing in the same facility????!!!

That experience was quite depressing and what was supposed to be a fun outing turned out to be a traumatizing one and I vowed never to step foot into any local animal park again.

That was a few years ago. I sincerely hope that the Animal Safari at A'Famosa Resort is much better now in terms of the animals' living conditions. Maybe I should brave myself and go back there and have look...

**********

Petstores should know that people are generally ignorant or too dumb to read signs. So if they don't want people to touch their animals and stress out their animals, they should just keep their animals enclosed and not leave their animals out in the open and put a sign saying "Please do not touch the animal as it will cause stress to the animal" and expect people to adhere to it coz they just WON'T!! Not when an interesting-looking animal is tantalizing them right in front of their eyes. Doesn't matter that if they (people) are in the animal's position, they wouldn't like being poked and prodded like what they were doing to the animal.

I seriously and honestly think that sometimes, people have no concept of common sense at all!!

**********

Yes, I've been ranting a lot about people's attitudes towards animals... but this is one subject that is close to my heart... and I shall continue ranting and WILL do my best to make people aware of animal rights & welfare. An uphill struggle? You bet. But someone's gotta do it.