First off, I'm a proponent of humans doing all that they reasonably can, to prevent the loss of endangered species of animals. I firmly believe that we ought to be the best caretakers of this world that we can.
Having said that, I am so frustrated with the direction of humanity right now. Reading the comments left about this incident has convinced me more than anything that, humanity is headed for another meltdown like we saw in World War 2, with the holocaust and all it's horrors.http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/killing-of-gorilla-to-save-boy-at-ohio-zoo-sparks-outrage/ar-BBtCunM?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=U348DHP
A quick recap if you haven't read.
A three year old boy fell into a closed off area of the zoo, and was grabbed by an agitated adult male gorilla, who dragged the boy around for ten minutes before zoo officials decided to kill the gorilla.
Some of you may remember the incident I am going to mention, because it happened in Washington state, it was a number of years back now, and my memory of the event isn't what it was, I no longer remember some exact details, but I still remember clearly how I felt, and this gorilla incident is, if anything, even worse.
Years back, a lady, a mother of three (I believe) was out jogging in a somewhat remote park area in Washington state, and as she was jogging, she got attacked by a Cougar, and eventually died from the wounds.
State authorities then were forced to track down the mountain lion, and put it down, because attacks like that obviously cannot be tolerated, and the theory is that, once they realize how easy prey humans are, the animal would then attack again and again until stopped.
The authorities did in fact track the animal down, and they shot and killed it. They discovered shortly after, that the Cougar had young, (cubs, kittens? I dunno, I'll go with cubs I guess.) hidden away in a den somewhere, and naturally they took them in, to take care of them.
This was the most likely reason for the attack to begin with, a mother cougar protecting her young, as cougars aren't all that big and are normally quite shy around humans.
At any rate, someone set up a survivors trust fund for the children, and someone else set up a similar fund for the cougar cubs.
I no longer remember the dollars amounts these two funds received, but I do remember that the cougars trust fund more than tripled the amount that the children received. (It was something along the lines of humans 30,000 cougars 100,000.)
I was, and still am, absolutely outraged by this.
Is the value of human life so cheap? Do the majority of Americans really feel that the lives of some cougar cubs have more value than humans?
Well, reading the comments from this recent gorilla story, has more than confirmed to me, that yes, for the VAST majority of people in fact do believe that human life is cheap.
It's no wonder we treat each other the way we do.
A majority of people once believed that mankind was created by GOD, and made in his image, and thus, we once believed that life was sacred.
We've lost sight of that belief, the majority of people no longer believe that we are expressly created in HIS image, and just look around you at the results.
I believe with every fiber of my being that, this world is headed, inexorably, on a collision course, for a global disaster that while make the second world war, with all of it's atrocities, look like Tiddly Winks.
The fact that people hold the value of a zoo gorilla, higher than that of a three year old boy, tells you everything you need to know about the state of humanity.
The secularists out there will swear up and down that we're getting better, even though there is not one single honest way to argue that. We've moved further and further away from any standard of morality now, to the point where people who are my age, can remember a day when the things happening right now, never even entered our wildest imaginations!
I shudder to think the kind of world we are leaving our kids, I just wish that aside from ranting and wringing my hands in righteous indignation there was anything that could realistically be done to alter the course we're on as a nation, and as a species...but I don't believe that there is.
I give us ten years tops.