Caged killers: when human curiosity outweighs survival instincts

Posted on 7 August 2013

On Monday two brothers aged five and seven were reportedly killed by an African rock python while visiting an apartment above an exotic pet store in New Brunswick, Canada. The snake is said to have found its way into the ventilation system, and fallen through the ceiling into the room where the boys were sleeping. It is unclear exactly how the whole event transpired – it seems strange that a snake which is not venomous would be able to kill two children in quick enough succession that neither was able to get away or at least call for help (the owner of the house discovered the boys dead in the lounge of the house in the morning). Questions aside, this stands as another example of the dangers of keeping wild animals in captivity.

African rock pythons are the largest species of snake in Africa. They can grow to six metres in length and have incredibly muscular bodies which they use to wrap around their prey, constricting, crushing and suffocating before forcing their meal down their gullets whole (see: Python eats entire wildebeest calf). Neither of the boys were eaten by the snake in question (which seems stranger still – constriction doesn’t seem a measure of self-defence or random lashing-out, but hey, I’m no snake expert) but the image of them being suffocated by the dry scales of a creature which belongs on the other side of the world, is gruesome enough as it is.

African Rock Python eating wildesbeest calf

African Rock Python eating wildesbeest calf

 

The dangers of keeping predatory animals in captivity

The event throws into light the dangers of keeping powerful predatory animals in close proximity to people. The African rock python has evolved to survive in an environment in which it has to be very good at killing small warm-blooded mammals in order to survive. To take such a creature out of that environment and put it in a restricted space from which it may want to escape, in the same house as two small warm-blooded brothers, is surely a failure of human intelligence and foresight.

A similar story of the difficult contradiction between human curiosity (and greed) and our sense of self-preservation recently came to light in the documentary Blackfish. The film focuses on the death of orca trainer, Dawn Brancheau, killed by the very killer-whale she was training in 2010. The event happened at the Sea World theme park in Orlando, Florida. The whale, going by the name of Tilikum, crushed its trainer before ripping off and swallowing her arm. As if this wasn’t horrific enough, Brancheau wasn’t the first person to be killed by Tilikum. The whale drowned another trainer by pinning her down at the bottom of his tank in 1991, and a third person was found dead in 1999, draped over the back of the whale, having climbed into the tank the previous night.

The film Blackfish questions the practices of Sea World itself, suggesting that the early capture, captivity and treatment of the whale (by other captive whales from which it couldn’t escape, as much as by trainers themselves) resulted in a psychosis of some description in the animal – a homicidal tendency which lead to the death of three people. The film throws into light the measures which people go to in order to satisfy their yearning curiosity. We would all like to be able to have a good look at a creature like an orca – they are beautiful, powerful and have a certain mystery about them (read: the orcas of false bay). The people at Sea World simply figured out that they could make a lot of money by providing us with the opportunity to do exactly that. Part of this opportunity involves putting people (who volunteer out of their own insatiable curiosity) into confined spaces with the most powerful predator in water – a creature which, again, has evolved to kill small warm-blooded mammals for its livelihood.

Put me (awake and aware) in a living room with an African rock python intent on causing me harm, and I might give myself decent odds of getting away. Put me in a deep water tank with an Orca intent on causing me harm and I give myself no chance whatsoever – no matter how awake or aware I might be (I made a similar point in this post on shark-foiling wetsuits).

The fact of the matter is that few people are lucky enough to see creatures like orcas and African rock pythons in the wild. If we (as a relatively physically pathetic species) want to bring predatory creatures to us then we have to be prepared to face the consequences. The tragic part of it is that all-too-often the people responsible for the presence of the predator are not those who pay the price.

 






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