Two bison deaths at Hershey Park

    

On Sept. 7, two bisons was dead at Hershey's Zoo America because of last serious flooding. One drowned and the other was enthanized by the staff. Recently, A animal rights group PETA called for federal probe of the bison deaths. I have 3 questions on this case.

First, It is so big case for people here. When I googled this case, it showed me 506,000 results. I am surprised that deaths of two bisons can make such a big amounts of news. Last summer, South Korea had singular big flood in history but I've never heard any news of animals. I think American people think that animal is important as same as human more than Korean. I was also surprised that there is a word 'beloved bisons' in an article. It is hard to find this kind of word for anmials in the articles of newspapers in South Korea.

Second, I thought about enthanasia. Basically, I am not opposed to euthanasia. I think it's better to administer euthanasia than keeping unmeaningful life. But I am sure it has to be careful and be paid close attention. However, in this case, a staff shot a bison when he was in water. I am wondered how long the staff considered the bison's death and pain.

Finally, the biggest problem of Hershey's staffs is not to prepare evacuation. Everybody knew it was heavy rain and TV warned all day big flood. But they keeps saying they did not know the seriousness of flooding. I think it does not make sense and PETA said the zoo failed to evacuate the animals despite receiving warnings that severe flooding was imminent. In my view, they just ignored warnings and handled the flooding easefully.

The last flooding might cause many damages and victims. We can call it as a natual disaster. But we have to know human can prevent many of them.  

+ Why did they fail to evacuate the bison?

According to Hershey Park, the staff put the zoo evacuation plan into effect and began to move animals in danger spots to other Hershey Entertainment & Resorts property, including the Giant Center, Hersheypark, Hersheypark Stadium and Hersheypark Arena.

The flood waters rose very quickly in ther area occupied by two bison, said Mindy Bianca, Hershey spokeswoman. The bison weigh about 2,000 pounds each and stand about six feet tall.

+ What is PETA?

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals(PETA) is an American animal rights organization based in Norfolk, Virginia, and led by Ingrid Newkirk, its international president. A non-profit corporation with 300 employees and tow million members and supporters, it claims to be the largest animal rights group in ther world. Its slogan is "animals are not ours to eat, wear, experimetn on, or use for entertainment."

There are critics of their ways of campaign and euthanaia. There are also opinions that their advertisement is too exterme. In 2009, they eutanized 2,301 dogs and cats. They think if there is no shelter or home for animals, they will suffer pains and giving death to them is better than that.