A zoo system in Massachusetts is more or less resorting to
hostage-taking in response to proposed budget cuts. The
Boston Globe reports that after Gov. Deval Patrick decreased
funding for Franklin Park Zoo and Stone Zoo from $6.5 to $2.5
million in a line-item veto, the zoo officials wrote the governor
saying that the steep budget cuts would render them unable to
take care of the animals, and that many of them would have to be
euthanized.
In other words, give us our money or we'll start executing
defenseless animals, beginning with the cutest ones first (or at
least that's where I would start, just to ratchet up the
pressure).
This is a bold step. It's uncharted territory, because none of
the other services that work with actual humans could make the
same aggressive move, but with animals you can take the hard
line. Will Gov. Patrick really let them haul out the pandas to be
shot with a humane killer, as the public watches?
I hope that it works out for the zoos, because Franklin Park Zoo
was my zoo growing up, the first place I ever saw a lion. Either
way, though, I feel like we're in for an exciting finish.
