An Australian zoo has put a group of humans on display to raise awareness about primate conservation — with the proviso that they don’t get up to any monkey business.
Over a month, the humans will be locked in an unused orang-utan cage at Adelaide zoo, braving the searing heat and snacking on bananas. They will be monitored by a psychologist who hopes to use the findings to improve conditions for real apes in captivity.
Dr. Carla Litchfield, who is conducting the experiment, has laid down firm rules for the new apes: no nudity, no rude behavior and no jumping into the enclosure spa.
Zoo vets haven’t ruled out using tranquillizer darts if the humans misbehave.
Look, look! An Australian version of Congress.
Humans in a zoo? Not a first, nor will it be the last time. Zoos are a thing of the past, they serve no purpose.
[Zoos are a thing of the past] – What do you mean? There are 50 state legislatures, Congress, countless city councils, school boards, etc. They all look like zoos to me.
Zoos are a thing of the past? What kind of sad, deluded, deprived little life do you live?
Zoos are now, more than ever, a hugely important resource for both conservation and education. To think otherwise is to not know much about either topic.
Yes some zoos suck, usually because of mis-management (they’ll try to run a zoo like a mini-disney world… it doesn’t work that way). But the ones that don’t are usually 100 times better for visitors and animals anyway.
In fact, it’s in the past that zoos served no purpose… when zoos were just jails for wild animals…
These days, zoos are a critical part of world wide conservation efforts. Aside from being educational and entertaining, they are integral to research as well.
No nudity? They are animals in a zoo, it should be no clothes!
Next thing you know they’ll try to apply the same unreasonable rules to resident apes that do have hairy bodies.
Wait – wasn’t there some sort of fringe movement to put clothes on zoo animals, back in the 1970s? Did they turn into PETA or something?
Hummmm “Zoo vets haven’t ruled out using tranquillizer darts if the humans misbehave.”
I gather that, like most experiments of this type, they are using grad students subjects :).
Dave
if zoos are “jails for wild animais” does that mean that prisons are “jails for wild humans”?
#8 🙂
The goverment have been doing this for years to refugees here in Australia. The refugees would know better than anyone what its like to be stuck in a cage and treated like an animal.
I saw this on the Twilight Zone marathon on SciFi over the holidays, only it was a Martian zoo displaying a human.
#11, I too. A classic.