Toronto Sun Trash Talk

I'm not usually much of a newspaper reader. But, I did pick up the paper today. What can I say? The front page caught my eye.


Click on the picture for a link to the full story.

I'll give you the gist of it here.

Basically, people are upset because male reindeer fawns born at the zoo this year are being euthanized. Now, yes, at first glance this does sound bad. But, there's more to the story. They are not being killed willy-nilly, there was a lot of debate and discussion before the decision was made. Yes, the reindeer are being killed but, there is a reason behind it.

First of all, the zoo doesn't have any more room for the males. (More females don't require more space as they can be added to the current herd with no problems.) The males however, will fight for control of the harem and breeding rights so, any additional males would need to be kept in a separate enclosure (for which there isn't currently room at the zoo). At this point the zoo would normally try to sell the males to another zoo. However, no one seems to be in the market for male reindeer right now. They can't even give them away! Releasing them into the wild in not an option. So, what are we left with?

The only real options are to euthanize them now, as babies, or to raise them to maturity and have a sale on reindeer steak next spring. (I'm sure that the second option would cause almost as much of an outcry as the first.)

There are a few, much less viable options.
Let's see... we could adopt them out to the public. <sarcasm>Yeah, that's a good idea!</sarcasm> I don't think I need to say any more on that topic!
They could keep them at the zoo. In the enclosures that already have enough males. But, I don't think visitors to the zoo would much like seeing rutting reindeer fighting and injuring each other every mating season. I guess some would argue that this is not a problem as the same thing would be happening in the wild. However, in the wild, reindeer are not kept in confined enclosures. They can get away from each other. Keeping a bunch of male reindeer locked in a confined space together would be cruel. As far as I'm concerned, it would be no better than dog fights, or cock-fighting!
The only other thing that occurs to me, is to release the unwanted males. This does not seem prudent however. First of all, I worry about them affecting the ecosystem. Then, you have to worry about them actually surviving! If they're used to having food provided for them, it's going to be a rude awakening to suddenly have to forage for food! Then there's the predators to contend with. Releasing them into the wild would likely cause a much slower, more distressful death than being euthanized as a fawn.

So, really, I don't see any other options here. As the zoo reps said, what they're doing is a "necessary evil". It's unfortunate, but true. I wish that the Sun's journalist could have seen that. Instead, they just try to manipulate readers' emotions to cause a reaction. Instead of providing facts, they're spewing buzz words!

I understand that most newspapers are biased. However, I found this to be extreme. I was quite upset by the way it was presented. I understand why the zoo is doing what it's doing and I wish that the Sun hadn't been so anxious to jump on a story that would get a rise out of people that they ignored most of the facts!