Meerkats and Polar Bears
One of Richard's sisters, "E", has been a faithful viewer of Meerkat Manor, a real-life animal drama on Animal Planet on TV. [Richard watched it for the first season, but I (Perri) have avoided it because, being a real nature show, I knew that nasty things couldn't help but happen to the meerkats]. Meerkats are charming little creatures which live in very close knit groups [called mobs or gangs] in the Kalahari Desert in Africa. They are close relatives to mongooses.
The trouble is that the beloved [by the show's viewers] matriarch of the group, Flower, died recently of a cobra bite. Then, not long after, Mozart [a plucky female meerkat who was a real favorite of a lot of viewers, including Richard's sister, "E"] was killed by a jackal. Now "E" has been watching the show faithfully every week for years and had become very attached to Mozart and was understandably extremely upset by her death, especially as it came so close to the death of Flower. The problem is that "E" hasn't been able to find anyone she personally knows who thinks that the death of Mozart is any big deal. Almost all of her friends, etc., think that "E" is over-reacting in a very foolish way about it.
She e-mailed us, and we assured her that there was nothing wrong with the way she was reacting. We pointed out that she had come to know this little meerkat [who apparently had a lot of appealing characteristics] over a period of years, and that she was mourning the real death of a real creature. We think that the people who were giving "E"'s grief short-shrift, are the kind of people who can't understand why people get so upset when pets die. "They're just animals," these people say.
Some people seem to be incredibly insensitive that way. We've given "E" as much moral support and helpful suggestions as we can, but we're afraid that "E" is going to have to go through the usual grief process for the death of poor Mozart.
The strange thing is that something similar happened to me quite a number of years ago now. There was this wonderful, huge, very handsome male polar bear in the local zoo [which is about two or three blocks from where we live], which was one of my very favorite animals in the zoo, which Richard and I visited frequently. This polar bear's name was Chief and he was very popular with the zoo's visitors.
Very early one Sunday morning, however, a truly insane individual managed to climb into Chief's enclosure. Polar bears, especially male ones, are extremely territorial, so Chief reacted poorly to this invasion and knocked the man unconscious with a single blow from his huge paw. An early morning jogger had by this time seen what was happening and had called the police. A policeman arrived in time to see Chief starting to drag the man into his den.
Now, as it turns out, it would have taken Animal Control a good half-hour or more to get to the zoo with anything that would knockout a full-grown polar bear [the zoo had nothing immediately on hand that would have acted any quicker on such a large animal], so the policeman had to shoot Chief with his handgun. It took two or three gun shot wounds to get Chief to drop the man, and Chief then went into a corner of his exhibit and took about a hour to die.
Needless to say, the zoo-going public were devastated by the whole thing. The insane man, as it happens, was fine once they got him out, and he is now a full-time resident of the local insane asylum. Not because he was the cause of Chief's death, of course, but because he had proved, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he was a threat to his own life.
For a variety of reasons, this really threw me for a loop and I was incredibly upset by the whole thing. As with "E", most of the people around me [not Richard, fortunately] could not understand how I could be so grief-stricken by the death [no matter how tragically unnecessary] of a mere polar bear in a local zoo. But I was. Just as "E" is grief-stricken by the death of the meerkat, Mozart. It's difficult, sometimes, to figure out why some things hit us so hard. We don't know how things will work out with "E", but the outcome of the death of Chief, as far as I've been concerned, is that polar bears have become my favorite animal--a totem animal of sorts for me.
Our zoo was lucky enough to get two very small polar bear cubs not too long after Chief's death. [An Inuit (Eskimo) hunter accidentally fell into the birthing den of a female polar bear up in Alaska, and had to kill her to save his life...he brought the two male cubs he found in the den to the Alaska Zoo, from where they were eventually sent to our zoo...our zoo got to keep one of them when they reached the age at which they had to be separated.]
The point of this whole story is that people need to realize that animals [especially if they're dearly beloved pets, but even if they're not] can be very special to individuals and that these individuals should be given support and allowed to grieve without being made to feel stupid and foolish for doing so.
If you feel the same way that we do, take a few seconds to regret the passing of these animals [and of any others that were beloved by yourself or of people you know]--Chief the polar bear and Mozart and Flower the meerkats.
The trouble is that the beloved [by the show's viewers] matriarch of the group, Flower, died recently of a cobra bite. Then, not long after, Mozart [a plucky female meerkat who was a real favorite of a lot of viewers, including Richard's sister, "E"] was killed by a jackal. Now "E" has been watching the show faithfully every week for years and had become very attached to Mozart and was understandably extremely upset by her death, especially as it came so close to the death of Flower. The problem is that "E" hasn't been able to find anyone she personally knows who thinks that the death of Mozart is any big deal. Almost all of her friends, etc., think that "E" is over-reacting in a very foolish way about it.
She e-mailed us, and we assured her that there was nothing wrong with the way she was reacting. We pointed out that she had come to know this little meerkat [who apparently had a lot of appealing characteristics] over a period of years, and that she was mourning the real death of a real creature. We think that the people who were giving "E"'s grief short-shrift, are the kind of people who can't understand why people get so upset when pets die. "They're just animals," these people say.
Some people seem to be incredibly insensitive that way. We've given "E" as much moral support and helpful suggestions as we can, but we're afraid that "E" is going to have to go through the usual grief process for the death of poor Mozart.
The strange thing is that something similar happened to me quite a number of years ago now. There was this wonderful, huge, very handsome male polar bear in the local zoo [which is about two or three blocks from where we live], which was one of my very favorite animals in the zoo, which Richard and I visited frequently. This polar bear's name was Chief and he was very popular with the zoo's visitors.
Very early one Sunday morning, however, a truly insane individual managed to climb into Chief's enclosure. Polar bears, especially male ones, are extremely territorial, so Chief reacted poorly to this invasion and knocked the man unconscious with a single blow from his huge paw. An early morning jogger had by this time seen what was happening and had called the police. A policeman arrived in time to see Chief starting to drag the man into his den.
Now, as it turns out, it would have taken Animal Control a good half-hour or more to get to the zoo with anything that would knockout a full-grown polar bear [the zoo had nothing immediately on hand that would have acted any quicker on such a large animal], so the policeman had to shoot Chief with his handgun. It took two or three gun shot wounds to get Chief to drop the man, and Chief then went into a corner of his exhibit and took about a hour to die.
Needless to say, the zoo-going public were devastated by the whole thing. The insane man, as it happens, was fine once they got him out, and he is now a full-time resident of the local insane asylum. Not because he was the cause of Chief's death, of course, but because he had proved, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he was a threat to his own life.
For a variety of reasons, this really threw me for a loop and I was incredibly upset by the whole thing. As with "E", most of the people around me [not Richard, fortunately] could not understand how I could be so grief-stricken by the death [no matter how tragically unnecessary] of a mere polar bear in a local zoo. But I was. Just as "E" is grief-stricken by the death of the meerkat, Mozart. It's difficult, sometimes, to figure out why some things hit us so hard. We don't know how things will work out with "E", but the outcome of the death of Chief, as far as I've been concerned, is that polar bears have become my favorite animal--a totem animal of sorts for me.
Our zoo was lucky enough to get two very small polar bear cubs not too long after Chief's death. [An Inuit (Eskimo) hunter accidentally fell into the birthing den of a female polar bear up in Alaska, and had to kill her to save his life...he brought the two male cubs he found in the den to the Alaska Zoo, from where they were eventually sent to our zoo...our zoo got to keep one of them when they reached the age at which they had to be separated.]
The point of this whole story is that people need to realize that animals [especially if they're dearly beloved pets, but even if they're not] can be very special to individuals and that these individuals should be given support and allowed to grieve without being made to feel stupid and foolish for doing so.
If you feel the same way that we do, take a few seconds to regret the passing of these animals [and of any others that were beloved by yourself or of people you know]--Chief the polar bear and Mozart and Flower the meerkats.