https://www.thedodo.com/rebel-wolf-killed-zoo-1180189057.html
A wolf has been killed due to repeated human error at one state’s zoo and people are outraged.
The incident began late last month at Menominee Park Zoo, a small public zoo in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, when a worker left a gate to an off-limits area of the zoo open. Several visitors took advantage of the open gate to slip into the staff-only area and get up close to the zoo’s wolf pack.
While one mother was busy snapping pictures of the captive animals, her four-year-old son approached the enclosure and stuck his fingers through the chain-link fence. A curious 12-year-old wolf named Rebel wandered up and nipped the child’s hand.
The child suffered four small puncture wounds, which were easily patched up after the incident. But when the Wisconsin Division of Public Health became involved, things got much worse for Rebel, who was the alpha of his four-wolf sibling pack.
According to the Oshkosh Police Department, the Division of Public Health (DPH) considered Rebel a rabies threat because the rabies vaccine hasn’t been proven effective in wolves.
Spencer Wilhelm, operations manager for the Wolf Conservation Center, told The Dodo that the vaccine hasn’t been studied because no one wants to kill the requisite number of wolves to research it, but that all evidence points to the vaccine working. Rebel was up-to-date on his rabies shots through 2018.
Despite the zoo’s protestations, the DPH let the parents decide whether to give their child preventative rabies shots. If they didn’t want to, Rebel would be killed so he could be tested.
The parents chose to kill him. Rebel tested negative.
ShutterstockNow, former fans of the zoo are up in arms about the treatment of Rebel, with many pointing out that the wolf was just acting naturally and should never have been in captivity in the first place.
“I don’t understand why this wild animal had to suffer for what idiotic humans did,” one person wrote on the zoo’s Facebook page. “Parents should have been punished for allowing their child into a NON-PUBLIC area.”
“Why would a zoo educate children that it’s OK to murder a wild animal who doesn’t even belong behind bars?” another person asked.
Wilhelm said that while rabies vaccines are unpleasant, they only last a few seconds. To avoid that temporary discomfort, he explained, “a life was ended that didn’t need to be ended.”
People have questioned whether Wisconsin’s public officials handled the situation appropriately, considering they immediately placed killing Rebel on the table. But unfortunately, Rebel’s death is just the latest in a string of tragic decisions backed by questionable wildlife policies.
ShutterstockIn April, Alaska sentenced a family of black bears to death for exhibiting defensive behavior — because a group of tourists surrounded them and chased them up a tree. The decision was fortunately reversed due to public outcry.
In May, a sleeping mountain lion was brutally killed in a minute-long shower of close-range gunshots in Nebraska simply for taking a nap next to a building.
And while rabies concerns are certainly valid, Wilhelm said, Rebel’s death was an unnecessary one.
“If the parents were concerned, they should have put their child through those shots,” he noted. “I don’t, in my opinion, think that the wolf should have been put down at all.”
To read about a similar case where a gorilla was killed after a child entered his cage, click here.
Exposing the Big Game 
Really disgusting when captive animals can’t be safe because people propel themselves into the animals’ supposedly safe spaces, and uncontrolled kids force fingers through fencing. Of course, the animals, although innocent, will be the victims.
How about this: When a zoo has state of the art enclosures, anyone who inserts all or part of himself/herself in, the animals get to decide that person’s fate with no adverse consequences for the animal. If someone is drunk enough or crazy enough to go in, their condition will have an immediate cure if the animal is in a bad mood.
James Michael Lafferty recently wrote an article on Harambe noting there are times when the only option is perfection.
Maintaining zoo barriers and paying attention when visiting are two instances when perfection is required. Harambe was gunned down for the failures of the zoo and the mother.
While I’m at it, does anyone else get tired of Jack Hanna’s showing up after Harambe’s death and the killing of the animals at Zanesville, etc.? He always explains that any confrontation between an animal and a human requires the killing of the animal to avoid potential harm. I have a theory that as someone who makes a living working with wild animals he wants to assure everyone that he is no “animal lover” who cares less about people. That accusation recurs in comments about those who are outraged over Harambe, Cecil, and Marius. It seems only human beings deserve any kind of protection or justice.
I have great respect for Jane Goodall, but I wish she would have stopped with expressing sadness over Harambe’s fate. But she later went further and announced the shooting was necessary. That just plays into the drum beat of people first no matter the provocation or irresponsibility on their part.
I know, I was dismayed by that additional statement too.
Anyway, at least there’s one place where animals still insist upon their rights. Isn’t this gorgeous? When we were there, cars were beeping horns to get the bison to move quicker, but to no avail:
http://www.msn.com/en-us/video/animals/dozens-of-bison-walk-through-queue-of-cars-in-yellowstone/vp-AAhtXcM
I love that! I’m a fan of bison anyway.
It shows how brave people are when they don’t have guns and face a veritable herd of 2000-pound animals who aren’t stuck in cages.
Ha! I thought the little calves looked nervous and are sticking close to their mothers. The mom bison probably warned them: ‘Stay close to me and watch out that you aren’t grabbed by one of them, and forced into one of their cars!’
That was sad when people put the little one in their car because they thought he was cold, and the park service euthanized him because the herd wouldn’t accept him back. Makes you wonder if there was something wrong in the first place. Most people wouldn’t dare go near to a baby bison who was close to the mom, at least not do it and live to tell the tale.
“The parents ‘chose’ to kill him’.
Well, isn’t that lovely to be able to decide some poor creatures fate, regardless of your own contributory negligence. Sounds a lot like the time of Henry VIII. Anyone who trespasses where they shouldn’t have gone ought to have been fined at least.
That suggests that zoos are mostly businesses, and they can’t risk offending the customers. So much for the prisoners they’re supposed to be caring for.
As for conservation, poor Marius revealed there are victims to saving the species. First we take their habitat and poach them to the brink of extinction. After we create an endangered species, we play Russian roulette with the gene pool and the lives we’re supposed to be saving. The bullet was in the chamber when Marius turn came along.
H.sapiens at work.
Rabies is hyped and hysterical reaction to such a situation. Maybe the wrong animals are in cages.
Animals don’t belong in Zoos!
only in their homes, which are in the wild!
Humans make these prisons for animals, maybe more of these humans should be inside of them!
That was a terrible decision by officials to kill the wolf because of a human’s curiosity. Awfully disgusted
I know, what a precarious situation – if a kid falls by accident into your prison, you get taken out by a sniper. If you are considered ‘excess’ through no fault of your own, you get killed and butchered in front of the next generation of zoogoers so they are conditioned to treating you like nothing, and then fed to the predators. Zoos have to go. The questionable benefits they provide are not worth the indignities and cruelties. More effort and money ought to be put into maintaining habitat and stopping poaching (I vote for drone strikes) and children ought to be encouraged to appreciate the wildlife in their own habitats.
Or instead the money ought to be …..put into maintaining habitats and stopping/harsher penalties for poaching.
I like the drone idea.