BBC reports:
Eight tigers and a lioness, belonging to a Russian travelling circus, have died during a 20-hour journey across Siberia in an enclosed, heated truck.
The animals were found dead when they arrived early on Tuesday in the city of Yakutsk, where they had been due to perform in holiday shows.
A dog, however, survived the same trip. Why? Because dogs know no shame; dogs are happy to do dumb tricks for their masters. Lions and tigers, the former kings of the jungle, are too noble for this sort of thing (standing on stools, jumping through hoops), too proud for this miserable life in cages and the back of trucks.
I don’t think they died of shame.
I hate animal circuses. This is sad.
Plus dogs fucking rule! Go dogs!!!
nobility has shit to do with surviving a lack of oxygen. fuck circuses.
jesus christ you really, really, REALLY try to hard charles. seriously.
Funny post, but core of truth. Nobility and dignity do matter – survival rates for the sick and elderly are affected by how engaged they are with their environment, how comfortable they are with their surroundings. I expect toxicology will find hemlock in their stomachs and on their paws.
You’re anthropomorphizing, Charles.
Poorly. Stupidly. Without reason.
Oh, and lions don’t live in the fucking jungle. Where you from again?
Charles, you have a conscience that comes thru on your posts, unlike some other coworkers of yours (do you remember that comment about the Christmas Song Dreck post by Savage? something like “that’s a sweet way to remember your mother Dan”). I don’t about the pride and prejudices of every animal – well maybe lions have pride 😉 – but the African starlings studied by Dustin Rubenstein at Columbia U. have a little to offer in the way of child mother and father.
Anyway, I’m out for the rest of the year. Merry Christmas to the haters, and the horses you pretend to ride in on. You deserve it.
Does this explain your continued employment by the stranger?
Why do like eight people complain every time Charles Mudede says something really beautiful? This man is a poet. My favorite stranger writer.
Honestly, you missed the point guys. Again and again.
Russia
Siberia
Circus
Maybe they comitted suicide.
It’s not hateful – it’s a nice thing to say, but has nothing to do with the reality of what most likely happened. And yeah, jungles and lions? Are we in Disney land?
Carbon monoxide poisoning might be the culprit, though generally smaller animals are affected first.
Most likely cause is deliberate poisoning. Someone wanted to hurt the circus, so they poisoned the tigers.
Number’s 13 and 8, Have you ever heard the phrase “king of the jungle” before? Which animal do you think of? I, personally, think of “cultural illiteracy”.
It’s pretty simple, dogs can pant to release excess heat, cats cannot. Mudede still comes across more as a jerk than a poet though.
Shifting the blame away from the assholes who neglected these animals in order to make a big, poetic, bullshit point about the nature of wild creatures is really fucking WEAK, charles.
@17, words right outta my mouth.
Charles has a point. These animals have evolved adaptations for a wild evironment. They are nature’s work of art in a sense. They have finely tuned senses and bodies able to work and flourish in specific ways. Captivity perverts their purpose.
This post sounds like the ruminations of a first year philosophy major after a heaping bowl has been smoked. So deep. So clear. Why hasn’t the rest of the world seen this truth, man?
Anthropomorphizing animals’ emotions and motivations like this is very childish. Surely you’ve advanced far enough to stop with the Winnie-the-Pooh hyperbole and start understanding animals with the mind of an adult. Or?
@11 enlighten us. WTF is the point we’re missing. On the surface he’s saying the dog survived the trip because dogs are dumb and do tricks. Same old ignorant high school philosophy crap he always spews. I suppose next he’s going to tell us that the death of this tiger is the same as the extinction of the species.
Call me a boring realist if you like but I think we’re more likely to find that they were killed by some gas leak or something and the dog was more tolerant to it. But maybe he’s right. Maybe stupidity is a preservative and this dog, Charles, and George Bush will live forever.
No one would give a shit if it was goldfish that died in the back of a truck. This is only a heart-breaking story because we assign some false nobility to a lion that we don’t to a dog or a goldfish. And I think that’s okay. I like Charles’ spin on this…
I think it was a nice commentary. Dogs are long-domesticated, and certainly seem more… enthusiastic about truck rides/tricks/etc than I’d imagine lions and tigers would.
Domestic dogs seem to be happy enough as long as they’re fed, not beaten, and get to hang out with their owners or other animals. Lions and tigers are wild animals. The world has seen enough ‘tamed’ big cats snap and attack people to know that.
I certainly don’t think Charles is saying they literally died because of nobility. He is saying these are wild, independent animals whose minds are not accustomed to nor likely to be happy with performing tricks and being moved around in trucks. And, as someone else mentioned… it’s known that the mind exerts influence over the body during illness and such… it seems fair to reason that a creature (human, feline or canine) who is mentally miserable and tired may not survive things a more satisfied animal would. That is not to say that the actual cause of death is mental.
It amazes me the amount of commentators who are unable to handle it when Charles waxes poetic. It must make reading a lot of the literary greats rather difficult.
@16,
Cats can sweat; dogs don’t.