Polar Bears

One of the weirdest pieces of television ever screened in Australia showed a Werribee Zoo rhinoceros which, to put it gently, needed a little human handiwork to get it interested in the local female rhino. You can just imagine the zookeeper describing her day at work. “Oh, you know. Fed the zebras, jerked a rhino off. Just the usual.”

But the point of this story is not to mention a great big wank that screened on the ABC. That would hardly be news. It’s to point out that captive breeding programs are a complicated business. Handled professionally, as they are in Werribee, they can be tremendously effective programs. Handled poorly, they can be nothing short of cruel.

Yesterday’s awful amateur video of German polar bear “Knut” dying in captivity has spawned debate on the worthiness of captive breeding programs, and more generally, the role of zoos. (Click on the link only if you have a strong stomach. It’s a lot more graphic than watching a rhinoceros spank the monkey.)

Continue reading "Knut of a day raises questions over zoos" »

Just when you thought climate change debate couldn’t get any more hysterical, polar bears start falling out of the sky into city streets. (Warning: this may upset you if you really love polar bears.)

In the ad by climate change campaign Plane Stupid, the message after dozens of polar bears plummet to violent deaths is: “an average European flight produces over 400kg of greenhouse gases per passenger ... that’s the weight of an adult polar bear”. So the logic seems to be: belch 400kg of gas, kill one 400kg animal. Simple.

Actually it’s nonsense of course, but this kind of non sequitur has come to typify both established orthodox sides of the climate change debate in leaked email exchanges and the climax of negotiations over critical environmental laws today in Canberra.

Continue reading "Falling polar bears: Losing the plot on climate change" »