At the Cairo Zoo
Lost in the chaos of the fighting, the tear gas, the bombs and bullets, the sirens and the screaming of the uprising in Cairo and other parts of Egypt is the suffering of all the nonhuman animals.
At the Cairo Zoo, according to Al Arabiya, giraffes, rhinos, elephants and deer are so stressed, they’re becoming suicidal.
Cairo zoo psychologists told [the Egyptian newspaper al-Masry al-Youm] what they believe to be the animals’ suicidal thoughts.
Recent protests have taken place close to the zoo, located in Giza, with staff saying that shots could be heard from inside.
The psychologists noted that animals have an acute sense of hearing, prompting the giraffes, elephants, deer and even bears, to bang into walls and fences surrounding their enclosure, which they believed to be attempts to self-harm.
The heightened sense of fear has even led to the animals crying, the psychologists said.
Always forgotten in our endless, and endlessly self-centered, wars among ourselves, are all the animals who know nothing of our conflicts over whatever belief system we can’t stop fighting over. All they know is that they’re trapped in the middle of it all – caged up in the middle of a battle they have no part in.
We humans think we’re superior, above the other animals, exceptional, saved, chosen or whatever else. The facts, however, indicate the very opposite. We’re incapable even of maintaining social relationships with each other, let alone the rest of the world and all its inhabitants. Forever squabbling with each other in our attempts to make “progress”, we destroy just about everything and everyone around us.
The animals at the Cairo Zoo just can’t deal with it. And rather than trying to kill us, they’re apparently just trying to kill themselves to get away from it all.
Can you blame them?