Do your parents have visions of vacation visits to aquariums or zoos dancing in their heads? Yeah, we know those parks can look real pretty to us tourists, who’ll only be there for a few hours, but they’re dull, boring cages for animals who have to spend their whole lives there. Here’s the rundown on the seven saddest:
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no.1 DISNEY’S ANIMAL KINGDOM Orlando, Florida
This place is more like a funeral parlor than a theme park. Before it even opened, 31 animals died, including two cranes who were run over by trucks and four cheetah cubs and two otters who swallowed poison.
Conservation? Schmonservation. In order to build snack bars and cages for imported animals, Disney bulldozed tens of thousands of acres of wildlife habitat, killing native gopher tortoises and other animals.
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no.2 SIEGFRIED & ROY Las Vegas, Nevada
The only magic trick we would like to see Siegfried & Roy perform is to make animals disappear from their act. Animals used as stage props have to deal with cages, loud music, bright lights, and screaming crowds.
Conservation? Schmonservation. Siegfried & Roy breed white tigers, an abnormal color variation of Bengal tigers. All captive white tigers are inbred, and some suffer serious birth defects.
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no.3 SEA WORLD San Antonio, Texas; San Diego, California; Orlando, Florida
The next blockbuster movie should be Free Shamu. In the wild, orca whales swim up to 100 miles a day and live with their families, sometimes for their whole lives. In captivity, they are confined, alone or with “strangers,” to a virtual bathtub. At Sea World, which owns most of the captive orcas and dolphins in the United States, 39 orcas and 54 dolphins have died.
Conservation? Schmonservation. Until the public got wind of it, Sea World shot wild ducks who flew in and joined resident birds.
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no.4 SIX FLAGS MARINE WORLD Vallejo, California
In March 2001, two former Marine World employees filed a report with the U.S. Department of Agriculture alleging animal beatings, neglect, and suffering caused by noise from thrill rides and crowds. One of the casualties was a 2-year-old elephant, who should have stayed with his mother for at least 10 years. He died six months after arriving at Marine World.
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no.5 CATSKILL GAME FARM Catskill, New York
Catskill Game Farm is no game for its 2,000 animals, including big cats, bears, primates, pygmy hippos, goats, pigs, sheep, and others. Catskill lures customers with cute baby animals, then sells them when they outgrow their cuteness to slaughterhouses or to canned hunts where they are shot by hunters.
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no.6 SIX FLAGS WILD SAFARI Jackson, New Jersey
While drive-through wildlife parks may seem like sanctuaries, they aren’t exactly a walk in the park for the animals.Twenty-six animals died in just three months at Six Flags Wild Safari.The park has also sold “surplus” animals to laboratories and hunting ranches.
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no.7 THREE BEARS GIFT SHOP Pigeon Forge, Tennessee
Visiting the Three Bears Gift Shop is more like a nightmare than a fairy tale.The bears are kept in a depressing concrete pit and often go without proper shelter or clean food and drinking water.All the bears live in the same small cage—even bears who fight with each other.
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Instead of taking a terrible trip to see tortured animals, why not hit the beach, go for a hike, visit a museum, or take a whale-watching cruise? |
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