{"id":6070,"date":"2014-07-31T06:38:41","date_gmt":"2014-07-31T06:38:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/?p=6070"},"modified":"2014-07-31T09:05:46","modified_gmt":"2014-07-31T09:05:46","slug":"coming-out-and-signing-off-pro-tem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/2014\/07\/31\/coming-out-and-signing-off-pro-tem\/","title":{"rendered":"Coming out \u2013 and signing off, pro tem"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I finally said it out loud, and in a reasonably public place: that I think of zoos, safari parks and the like, as little better than prisons. \u00a0This view has been a long time coming but I know when it started; it was an encounter with a (di)stressed polar bear in Bristol Zoo in the late 1970s. \u00a0And it was finally cemented, first, by the exploitative and never ending false panda pregnancy saga in Edinburgh, by the slaughtering\u00a0of healthy zoo animals that were surplus to genetic plans, and then by the sight of a squalid safari park from a West Midlands train a few weeks ago. \u00a0There can surely be few better organisations at so systematically deceiving the\u00a0public \u2014 and perhaps themselves \u2013 about what they do.<\/p>\n<p>As Oscar Wilde so nearly said ...<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>I\u00a0know not whether Laws be right,<br \/>\nOr whether Laws be wrong;<br \/>\nAll that we know who lie\u00a0in zoos<br \/>\nIs that the wall is\u00a0strong;<br \/>\nAnd that each day is like a year,<br \/>\nA year whose days are long.<\/p>\n<p>But this I know, that every Law<br \/>\nThat men have made for Man,<br \/>\nSince first Man took his brother's life,<br \/>\nAnd the sad world began,<br \/>\nBut straws the wheat and saves the chaff<br \/>\nWith a most evil fan.<\/p>\n<p>This too I know \u2013 and wise it were<br \/>\nIf each could know the same \u2013<br \/>\nThat every zoo\u00a0that humans\u00a0build<br \/>\nIs built with bricks of shame,<br \/>\nAnd bound with bars lest Christ should see<br \/>\nHow men their brothers maim.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>That's it. \u00a0Back after a week or so.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I finally said it out loud, and in a reasonably public place: that I think of zoos, safari parks and the like, as little better than prisons. \u00a0This view has been a long time coming but I know when it...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":237,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6070","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comment"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6070","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/237"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6070"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6070\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}