::tiptoe up onto the soapbox::

Let me preface my current rant by saying I am by no means an animal rights activist, but I still feel that animals have SOME rights - like, you know, to live and all.

First - There was a story on the Today show this morning about the woman in Florida who found an alligator in her kitchen. It was full of amusing stuff like her 911 call, waiting around for the animal control guy, etc etc. All good fun, right? There was a wild animal expert of some kind or a zoo-type person who was trying to explain the behaviour by saying that gators are hard wired for 3 things - eat, mate, swim (I'm paraphrasing) - so the expert guy says the gator was most likely going after the womans cat (eating) or caught a scent that smelled like some boots he wanted to knock (mate). The end of the story made a small remark about how the gator was finally taken out of the poor woman's kitchen (ha ha ha) and then taken away where it was destoyed. Okay, now back to you Meredith.....

Wait... destroyed? For doing what all animals do, which is follow their instinct? really?
You're telling me this gator, couldn't have been subdued and then released back in the everglades or in the wild somewhere? donated to a zoo? It HAD to be destroyed?

Now, there was also a story from California about a bear trainer who was working with a bear (black bear or grizzly, not sure), and he was bitten on the neck by the bear and killed. And the newscaster said "they are deciding whether or not to destroy the bear"
WHAT?!?!?!?!? For following it's animal instinct of "bite on the neck anyone who makes me do something I don't want to do" - like be in movies - apparently this was a bear that had been in some films...
Now, I understand that the killing of the trainer is tragic, and this defintely signals that Mr. Bear is now retired from the movie business --- but killing him?

Recently, you may have heard about the couger that was roaming around Roscoe Village in Chicago and was shot and killed by the police. (and by couger I mean the wild cat, not and 45 year old female sex pot). And when I say shot, I mean the couger was pumped full of lead. The pictures I saw show at least 3 shots hitting him. The cops said they were "charged" by the couger and had to shoot it in self defense. Yes, it was a residential area, yes there were families and kids around .... but my heart feels like there HAD to have been some other way. I know, I know --- hindsight is 20/20 and I wasn't there and all that crap. But the news just kept showing the cops slapping each other on the back, etc, and it made me kind of sick.
They couldn't stay in their cruisers and use the PA to tell people to stay in their houses?
Lincon Park Zoo is a 10 minute drive away - and I'm sure they had SOMEONE there that could have handled this....

What do you think?