September 3, 2011

"Tripoli Zoo: Libyan Lions Left Behind."

A HuffPo headline suggests the notion of a Rapture for animals.

If there were a Rapture for animals, which animals would be left behind? I'd say hummingbirds and butterflies. They are jerks.

And, sorry, I don't mean to seem unsympathetic to the zoo animals who are suffering in Libya. Who thinks of the zoo animals when there is a war? Here's a book: "The Incredible Wartime Rescue of the Baghdad Zoo."

And a truly cool novel about zoo animals at the mercy of a human-made disaster is "Life of Pi." It's not a war, but a ship wreck after a zoo in India is dismantled and some of the animals are packed on board en route to Canadian.

25 comments:

Tyrone Slothrop said...

Possums would be left behind. Obviously God doesn't like them and doesn't want them.

Ann, hummingbirds and butterflies? Didn't you leave out kittens and puppies?

ricpic said...

You pen up a magnificent lion or tiger or even bear so that what? so that mommy and daddy can have someplace to take the kiddies on a Sunday? Awful places, zoos.

Toshstu said...

Hummingbirds wouldn't make it, not with the Praying Mantis preying on them.

wv: solart. Sun sculptures

ndspinelli said...

I love to observe animals. When you're doing surveillance and they're nothing going on, it helps pass the time. My observations have been all birds have this, "That's my food, get the fuck out of here" attitude. High up there are sea gulls. But the most nasty I've seen are Ravens. In Skagway, AK they not only terrorize each other, but also humans. They are evil incarnate.

Leland said...

Lions, zoo animals, ship wrecks... Sounds like the movie Madagascar.

edutcher said...

Leave hummingbirds and butterflies behind?

What evil did they ever do?

Now, shrikes, or Andy Sullivan...

PaulV said...

WI law school ranks high on grads standard of living

http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2011/09/law-school-rankings.html

coketown said...

Galatians 3:28: "There is neither Jew nor Greek, free nor slave, man nor woman, hummingbird nor butterfly, for you are all one in Jesus Christ." It is perfect nonsense to say whole categories of animals will be left behind. There are believers and non-believers in each, and their salvation depends not on what they are but what they believe.

It would be funny if three-toed sloths ascended to heaven far slower than all other animals. Everyone's already in the clouds and the sloths are still like twenty feet above the ground. God would probably play "Monkey Gone to Heaven" to pass the time.

Wince said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Trooper York said...

I know they were left behind but the did the Lions sleep tonight?

Wince said...

Watch this video and you'll see, a hummingbird cares only for itself. If you could read their thoughts, translated into English, it would be: "Get the fuck out of my way. This is mine, all mine."

Maybe it's endemic to extremely small birds?

Including ducks!

William R. Hamblen said...

During the Granco-Prussian War, the people of Paris ate the zoo animals.

William said...

There is very little to be said in favor of mosquitoes. Their only function in nature is to plague humans.

MathMom said...

I loved loved loved Life of Pi. It's great to read, and great to listen to.

Fred4Pres said...

"...en route to Canadian."

You mean the brewery in Canada of that name? Nice.

Life of Pi is a good book that is promised to be a movie. But I think it would be hard to pull it off.

Another rescue story of animals in war is General Patton saving the Lipponzaner mares in WWII. I tried to rent the movie (Disney did it in the sixties as a B feature) but it is no longer available.

Ambrose said...

Here is a chance for me to plug "The Tiger's Wife" by Tea Obreht. A great novel that uses as a plot device the impact of war (WWII) on a tiger in a Balkan zoo. I have no stake in this, but recommend it as a good read.

Carol_Herman said...

Qaddafi seeded tens of buildings of dollars from his oil wealth around the globe. (Well, Hitler did, too.) After the despot goes ... it's a free-for-all to get to the money.

And, these large sums are now in the pockets of French politicians. And, maybe, some Beglian gnomes. Merkel showed up in Paris and got NONE!

One does wonder what's behind the scenes.

Libya's not going to become a paradise.

The rebels are gonna need an arsenal to terrorize the 19 tribes. Things may move faster than you think?

The one thing that is known is that no one in Libya gets an education to be a doctor. Or a layer. Or an engineer. Or a nurse. (So the first infusion's excuse was to pay the salaries of all this support personnel.)

I don't trust NONE of them!

But in the future despots will be careful enough not to piss off NATO.

As to the Zoo in Tripoli ... It wasn't built for visitors.

Tyrone Slothrop said...

@ndspinelli

I lived in Juneau for a number of years. Crows, the raven's little brothers, would steal my lunch while I was looking the other way. I also learned what garbage-eating cowards the noble bald eagles are. As for seagulls-- it was always amusing to watch them when I was throwing fish guts overboard. One bird would grab the guts, then three others would attack him, then a fourth would weasel in and grab the guts and take off, then another would attack him in the air and he would drop the guts, which would then sink beyond reach. Very informative with regard to human affairs.

David said...

"During the Granco-Prussian War, the people of Paris ate the zoo animals."

Yeah, and after they won, those awful Grancos started eating the French.

Kirby Olson said...

John Irving's early novel Setting Free the Bears takes place in Vienna in which the animals are in a similar condition as the Russians began to occupy Austria. It's a deadly dull book, if you ask me, and I can't remember any of it except the partisans driving around on motorcycles with the bears in the sidecars.

Popville said...

+1 on hummingbirds. Wild turkeys are at the top of my list.

The Dude said...

En route to Canadian... eh?

Dust Bunny Queen said...

I read a post apocalyptic book Emergence: David R Palmer that dealt with the problem of what happens to the zoo animals when humanity is being wiped out.

In this case, the author postulates that the people who care take the zoo animals would not just leave them to die of starvation or thirst. Instead they would set them free.

As a result you have rhinoceroses and tigers and bears (oh my) wandering through the streets of the cities and the country sides. Eventually, nature would stabilize and those wild animals from other parts of the world would fit into the eco systems, breed if there were male and female of the species and would survive.

Christy said...

Careful there! My spirit guide is a butterfly. Or was I never supposed to tell anyone that?

A murder or crows once trapped my cat high in a cherry tree.

While I was walking along the Rehoboth boardwalk, eating Thrashers' fries with a friend, a seagull swooped down and grabbed a fry from her fingers.

I loved The Life of Pi even if I never fully figured out the metaphor of the island.

Ann Althouse said...

Grancos... That cracks me up.