TNP recently ran an interview with a couple who are “angry” at the zoo over the White Tiger incident, because the man’s niece had been attacked by a rhino two years ago. Understandably so, but Son, ignoring the fine details - especially those differentiating both cases - is no way to go through life.
This is a prime example of what happens when journalists afford credence to people with more time than brains - the piece ends up laughably shallow.
He said: “For enclosures with dangerous animals, there should be more barricades between the visitors and the animals, such as a glass barrier which will allow people to see the animals. This way, no one will hurt themselves in the zoo.
Makes so much sense!
Because, as we all know, death by om-nom-nom is the only way to get hurt at the zoo.
Because having more barriers between the animals and the gawkers is more likely to thwart those hell-bent on feeding themselves to the animals, while allowing those who want to see the animals continue to be able to see the animals - even dangerous animals.
Because, you know, glass barriers are insurmountable. Damn glass barriers.
Gesturing to the fence at the white tigers’ exhibit, behind which visitors would stand, Mr Ramson, who visits the zoo three times a year, said: “Look at the barrier. It barely comes up to someone’s waist. You never know, in a split second, a child who has never seen these animals may get too excited, climb on the ledge, and fall in. Then it’s game-over.”
“behind which visitors would stand“, indeed!
For a guy who doesn’t seem to like the zoo much, he sure visits it a lot. I mean, a good number of Singaporeans I know don’t visit the zoo once in three years; and this guy does it every 4 months on average. Someone get this guy a Friend-of-the-Zoo card or something!
Also, he sounds tall.
Let’s postulate, for the sake of argument, that the “easiest” height for a child (who doesn’t know better) to scale would be one coming up to his chest. I say so because any barrier as tall as or taller than the child would require the kid to jump, climb, or get himself boosted significantly in order to get it to elbow height. (Remember, we’re talking about a height a child could simply scale like a ninja and get into the enclosure so fast that his presumably-responsible parents would have no time to react.)
I further posit that such at-risk children will fall into the 6-13 year old category. I say this because kids below 6 are generally too short - so as to be unreasonable in the context of this example. Anyone older than 13 should be in secondary school, and I presume (I hope I’m right) that secondary-school children know better.
The average height of a Singaporean adult male is about 1.7m, so I’m going to go out on a limb (in keeping with the facts-from-ass theme of this article) and work with a 1.4m-tall, primary six boy. Boy, because as everyone knows, girls only get excited by ponies. And ponies don’t eat people.
From the above, we can guesstimate the height of the barrier the boy can easily scale by expressing it as 0.75 x 1.4 = 1.05m. Seeing how Mr Ramson described it as “barely comes up to someone’s waist” we can easily agree that the person would have to be at least 2 x 1.05 = 2.10m tall. Wow, Mr Ramson.
So now we all know: If a 2.10m parent brought his average-height hyperactive primary six son (who has never seen a tiger) to the zoo, the odds of said son jumping the fence (with no glass barrier separating them from the animals) are very high indeed.
Also, the secondary moral of this whole post is that you can write a pretty damn lot so as long as you produce numbers from your arse.
Gary :: Nov.17.2008 ::
A thousand words, All the news that's fit to print, Bitchin' ::
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