A bloodsucking insect is being used to collect blood samples from animals at zoos, London Zoo has said. Kissing bugs crawl onto the animal and release a pain-reducing enzyme as they bite and suck the blood from veins.
The “stress-free” method simplifies collecting blood from animals, who do not have to be sedated, the zoo said…
“The process is non-invasive and painless for the animal…
The bugs are humanely killed after the blood samples are collected.
Guaranteed someone complains about killing the bugs.
OH MY GOD!!! THEY ARE KILLING THE BUGS!!!
(Glad I could help your prophecy Eideard)
Will you be complaining to the Zoo?
You didn’t say I had to complain in any general direction…
“The bugs are humanely killed after the blood samples are collected.”
How do you humanely kill a bug? I’d guess it involves a shoe.
They take them over to the reptile habitat. A natural death….
You stick a needle in them to draw the blood out of their stomache-analogue, then you thrown them in the trash, toilet, or grass.
Insects don’t feel pain the way animals do, so almost anything is humane.
Yea, this is all well and good for the giraffe , but when they tried to rectally take Jumbo the elephant’s temperature with that snake… well…
That poor elephant still hasn’t come down from that tree…
becagle said…
“That poor elephant still hasn’t come down from that tree…”
… the funniest post I’ve ever read on here. Congratulations!
I was busting up while I was posting it, everyone though I had flipped out.
i was whacked by this pesky creature last month and it gave me a nasty eye and hand.oh man it was really horrible! it itched like hell and my left eye was swollen like a golf ball and my left hand was like a boxing glove.
see my article regarding that at
http://www.melvindiaz.com/2009/06/24/a-bug-story/ and
http://www.melvindiaz.com/2009/07/23/kissing-bug/
thanks for the post!