Animal Musings

The other day, the OH and I were out with Bubboo when we came across a donkey.

Bubboo hadn’t encountered a donkey before that, ever. So, we turned around this way and that, pointed to the donkey, with excited shouts of ‘Look, Bubboo, that is a donkey! That is what you call a donkey!’. There was absolutely zero reaction from Bubboo, but that is not the point of this post. 🙂

The point of this post is that I immediately went on to feel guilty about our actions. Pointing fingers at the donkey, making it feel like an oddity – wasn’t that what we were doing? How would I feel if the donkey had pointed us out to its kids and shouted – ‘Look, humans! Those are what you call humans!’.

The OH, as usual, was super calm and there was no reaction from him to any of my rants. Gah!

Okay, I probably over-reacted a bit there, but I surely didn’t over-react about what this particular incident led me to think about – zoos and circuses.

I started hating zoos for this very reason – they make objects out of animals, pull them out of their natural habitat, all the while not even treating them right – once I became a conscious person, a more aware traveller on the path of life. Circuses are even sadder. But then, zoos are indeed great ways to teach little ones about different animals and birds that they might not see commonly around them. Of course, there’s always the fact that we could take Bubboo to Gir to show her lions or to Africa to show her zebras, but then, is it really a practical thing to do? Does that always happen? And this has to happen when the little one is still a toddler, curious and absorbing things like a sponge, right?

How does one draw the middle line?

Your thoughts, please?