People are Stupid

Ok, this really annoyed me. Five meerkats at the Minnesota Zoo had to be killed for rabies testing because some kid ignored the barriers, fence, rocks, and plexiglass partition and got bitten.

First off, the girl had to climb over rocks and circumvent a four foot plexiglass barrier -- which must have taken some time and where in the hell were her parents? Isn't a 9-year old girl old enough to understand the concept of "fence"? Or that you aren't supposed to actually touch the animals in the zoo?

And then,

The meerkats — two adults and their three babies born in spring — were vaccinated for rabies, but state health protocol required that they be killed and tested because the girl's parents didn't want her to undergo a series of six painful rabies shots.

Wah. The parents couldn't be bothered to actually watch their kid or teach her properly, and then demanded the destruction of the animals because it would be difficult for their pweshious baybee to have to pay the consequences for her actions. Give me a break.

The girl had to work to get her hand inside the enclosure. Zoo officials said she must have crawled over a driftwood barrier, climbed up more than 3 feet of artificial rock and reached over 4 feet of Plexiglas to get her arm into the exhibit.

Because meerkats stand just a foot tall on their hind legs, she had to have dangled her hand low for an animal to bite her finger, they said.

People are so f-ing stupid. I am reminded of people here in Colorado who approach buffalo or rutting bull elk to get pictures with their kids "because they're cute", or the aprocryphal tale of a parent smearing honey on a kids arm to get the bear to lick them.

Hey, people, take responsibility for your own actions.