West Coast Game Park Safari
To go or not to go?
On part of our honeymoon, my wife and I stopped at West Coast Game Park Safari. She really wanted to see the animals, and our stop at the Sea Lion Caves had been a bust. Personally, I am not a big fan of zoos because I would rather see the animals running free. Nothing beats accidentally running into a bear in Alaska or seeing moose standing around a trail and realizing that you are going to have to go back the way you came. The ideal would be that humans, being an intelligent and self-aware species, could find a way to live peacefully with the rest of the animals on the planet. After all, we are supposed to be all that and a bag of chips.
However, the reality is that we are no better than animals. Our species strives to be at the top of the food chain and is so successful that it continues to hunt, kill and cause the extinction of tens of thousands of species every year. (If you earn $35,000 a year, each of your dollars represents one species disappearing, and you are on the low end of the estimate.) However, many of the known species aren’t going extinct because they are sought as a food source, with maybe the exception of the Pangolin. Most are losing their habitats or being hunted by people willing to pay a premium to get a trophy.
So these 2 things battle in my head. Seeing a chimp in the wild in Africa in a place they weren’t supposed to be – Amazing! Seeing a chimp in a cage at a zoo – meh. But knowing that the zoo is helping to keep species alive even if those species will no longer be seen in the wild, and believing that if people experience animals at a zoo they will more likely be empathetic to that species plight, makes having zoos worthwhile. As long as they act ethically when it comes to obtaining their animals.
All of this aside, my wife had an awesome time at the West Coast Game Park Safari. She really loved being able to meet the cats up close and being able to pet them. The staff seemed well informed and professional, and many of the animals were left to roam freely or had relatively large cages. They seem to be doing good work and will hopefully produce a snow leopard kitten in the next 3 or 4 years.
However, the reality is that we are no better than animals. Our species strives to be at the top of the food chain and is so successful that it continues to hunt, kill and cause the extinction of tens of thousands of species every year. (If you earn $35,000 a year, each of your dollars represents one species disappearing, and you are on the low end of the estimate.) However, many of the known species aren’t going extinct because they are sought as a food source, with maybe the exception of the Pangolin. Most are losing their habitats or being hunted by people willing to pay a premium to get a trophy.
So these 2 things battle in my head. Seeing a chimp in the wild in Africa in a place they weren’t supposed to be – Amazing! Seeing a chimp in a cage at a zoo – meh. But knowing that the zoo is helping to keep species alive even if those species will no longer be seen in the wild, and believing that if people experience animals at a zoo they will more likely be empathetic to that species plight, makes having zoos worthwhile. As long as they act ethically when it comes to obtaining their animals.
All of this aside, my wife had an awesome time at the West Coast Game Park Safari. She really loved being able to meet the cats up close and being able to pet them. The staff seemed well informed and professional, and many of the animals were left to roam freely or had relatively large cages. They seem to be doing good work and will hopefully produce a snow leopard kitten in the next 3 or 4 years.