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Deaths at Denver Zoo were a tragedy

Saturday, March 24 at 12:01 AM

This Speakout has not been edited

By Keri Kugler , Arvada

I am tired of reading criticism over the death of Jorge the jaguar at the Denver Zoo, and the accusations that zoo keepers are jailers and zoo's are terrible places. What happened at the zoo was a tragedy all around. A keeper lost her life, an endangered animal had to be killed. Unfortunately, it looks like we may never know why a keeper and a jaguar were in the same area. Ashlee Pfaff had worked with big cats before coming to the Denver Zoo and had both education and training in dealing with large predators.

Zoo keepers at the Denver Zoo (and at all zoo's) care very deeply for the animals they take care off. They work difficult jobs and long hours because they care about animals and are driven to protect the biodiversity of the planet and preserve endangered species. They strive to provide the best care possible for the animals they work with. They often are caring for animals that were orphaned, kept illegally as pets, or were smuggled out of their homelands. In other words, they are often caring for animals that would have died if there were not compassionate zoo's to take them in. They work to inspire a sense of awe and wonder in children so that future generations will have a personal connection with wildlife and a desire to protect them. They often have advanced degrees and specialized training to do the work they do. Many of them could be making much higher salaries in other industries, but they choose to work for lower pay in a non-profit organization all because of their love of animals.

We do not know who the keepers were that responded to the emergency that day, or who had the terrible task of shooting a beloved animal, but I sure all that were involved are torn apart at both the loss of a co-worker and the loss of an animal in their care. I am certain that the responders would have done anything they could have to end the situation using tranquilizers, just as they would have done anything to end the situation without the death of a co-worker. But tranquilizers take time to work and in the minutes that they took to work, more keepers could have been injured or killed. No one involved was trying to punish the jaguar, they were trying to save the life of a co-worker and protect others. Also, please remember that they were responding in an emergency situation and had to make life and death decisions in seconds. I can't imagine the grief that those who responded that day are going though and can only offer my deepest sympathy to all involved.

Keepers have many responsibilities and one of them is to protect each other and the public. It is easy for someone who hates zoo's in general to use this tragedy to stand on their soap box and claim that the keepers who responded should have just let a co-worker die. But that is unreasonable, I wonder if they would feel the same if the public was in danger, especially one of the many school children who come to the zoo to learn about how to protect wildlife. Would those people still say the zoo should have let people die? This was a tragedy and it is terrible and shameful to attack those who love animals enough to devote their lives to caring for, and saving them. I sincerely wonder if any of the critics who have responded with letters in various papers about this tragedy do nearly as much to serve animals as any of the zoo's employees do.

READER COMMENTS

We taser crime people, don't we. Sometimes
they die.
Get a grip complainers, it was a predatory
ANIMAL!
I ask them, if the zookeeper had been
your child, what do you think you would do?

Posted by Caroline on March 24, 2007 04:16 PM