Took a little walk south of the park strip the other day. Walked by that lonely reindeer, Star, penned up in a chain-link cage. There is something really sad and cruel about locking up a social, roaming wild animal in a cage alone. I like quirky, weird stuff and sensibilities and expressions from the past. But not as a sustained cruelty and misery.
The time has come. The owners of Star should stop doing what they are doing. I’m not even sure it’s legal, and that doesn’t even matter.
We’ve moved a bit past the use and exploit — wildlife, the Earth, etc. — without limits mentality of yesteryear. It’s disgusting and selfish and cruel. It’s disgusting we have put up with it all these years.
Reminds me a lot of Annabelle and Maggie, the former elephants at the Alaska Zoo.
— Hugh Wade
Anchorage
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