Police are looking for the latest idiot to ignore zoo signs and barriers (and common sense) to get a videotape of himself spanking a hippopotamus at the Los Angeles Zoo. The crime is trespassing but the costs can be fair higher for the animals and the intruders. Hopefully, the police will find and charge this individual.
As we saw with animals like Harambe, careless or reckless human conduct can lead to the shooting of these animals to protect people who find themselves inside cages or trapped with animals. Since hippos kill more people than any animal in Africa, a fall by this individual could have well led to the shooting of both hippos to save him from his own thoughtless prank.
It is bad enough to have such animals confined in zoos, but people cannot resist using them for childish or sadistic acts like the common practice in China of throwing rocks and trash at animals. These people also make it more difficult for the public to see such animals. It was relatively easy to overcome this barrier because zoos try to allow people to get as close as possible to observe these magnificent animals. Virtually everyone respects the zoos and the animals enough to comply the signs and instructions, but less than one percent of the population will try a stunt like this. Indeed, California previously dealt with drunken men who taunted a tiger with lethal consequences. The zoo was later sued over the height of the protective wall.
The video shows a man jumping a protective railing to creep up on two hippos, Rosie and Mara. He then smacks Rosie on the rear and runs away while holding his arms up in a gesture of victory.
SomethingToLaughAt@SomeToLaughAtCould you ever be this bold to slap a #hippo butt? #STLA#whodidthat #ikyfl #couldyou #daredevil #zoomchallenge
California law states:
602.13. (a) Every person who enters into an animal enclosure at a
zoo, circus, or traveling animal exhibit, if the zoo, circus, or
exhibit is licensed or permitted to display living animals to the
public, and if signs prohibiting entrance into the animal enclosures
have been posted either at the entrance to the zoo, circus, or
traveling animal exhibit, or on the animal enclosure itself, without
the consent of the governing authority of the zoo, circus, or
traveling animal exhibit, or a representative authorized by the
governing authority, is guilty of an infraction or a misdemeanor,
subject to Section 19.8.
That would seem to cover this case rather nicely and, while it is only a misdemeanor, it is worth the police time and effort to deter future idiots who might want a trophy video in the future.
What do you think the appropriate penalty should be if this man is found?
OH LOOK! Another funny story about silly people, one from Georgetown, who decided to jump into a zoo!
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/wp-content/uploads/liberal-couple-bikers-600×339.jpg
“A young American couple quit their jobs to bike across central Asia.
The couple, Jay Austin and Lauren Geoghegan, were posting about their adventures online. Jay wrote that “evil is a make-believe concept” in one of his last posts. The couple wanted to share their openheartedness with all of the people they met on their journey.
In Tajikistan they were murdered by ISIS.
Both cyclists were found with several knife wounds.
Jay Austin and Lauren Geoghegan, both, last year quit their office jobs in Washington, DC, to embark on the journey. Austin, a vegan who worked for the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, and Geoghegan, a vegetarian who worked in the Georgetown University admissions office, decided that they’re were wasting their lives working.
“I’ve grown tired of spending the best hours of my day in front of a glowing rectangle, of coloring the best years of my life in swaths of grey and beige,” Austin wrote on his blog before he quit. “I’ve missed too many sunsets while my back was turned. Too many thunderstorms went unwatched, too many gentle breezes unnoticed.”
The couple documented their year-long journey on Instagram and on a joint blog. As The New York Times put it, they shared “the openheartedness they wanted to embody and the acts of kindness reciprocated by strangers.”
“You read the papers and you’re led to believe that the world is a big, scary place,” Austin wrote.
“People, the narrative goes, are not to be trusted. People are bad. People are evil.”
“I don’t buy it,” he continued. “Evil is a make-believe concept we’ve invented to deal with the complexities of fellow humans holding values and beliefs and perspectives different than our own… By and large, humans are kind. Self-interested sometimes, myopic sometimes, but kind. Generous and wonderful and kind.”
However, Austin and Geoghegan’s dream trip came to a tragic and gruesome end when they got to Tajikistan, a country with a known terrorist presence. They were riding their bikes through the country on July 29 when a car rammed them, according to CBS News. Five men got out of the car and stabbed the the couple to death.”
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2018/08/bleeding-heart-liberals-bike-through-tajikistan-to-prove-evil-is-a-make-believe-concept-are-stabbed-dead-by-isis/
Oh, those crazy kids!
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
about 500 people killed a year by hippos
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-36320744
You know, I bet the black guy mistook the hippo for his girlfriend. . .
Fat-a$$ black girls (is that redundant???) are called Ghettopotamuses for a reason.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
The video shows a man jumping a protective railing to creep up on two hippos, Rosie and Mara. He then smacks Rosie on the rear and runs away while holding his arms up in a gesture of victory.
So the guy stepped over a small barrier and then reached over the wall to quickly pat the hippo. Based on the way it had been described, I thought the guy had gotten into the enclosure with the hippos. Yes the hippos are dangerous, lethal animals. Yes, this guy is a self-absorbed moron. Yes, this could have ended very differently. Yes, the zoo would have likely been sued. So catch the guy, sentence him to community service as a star in a PSA about the dangers of being criminally stupid.
Hippos kill a lot of people every year in Africa. It could have claimed someone here too. A lot of people may wish it had.
Approximately 500 people are killed by hippos in Africa every year. In the last 365 days, Chicago alone has had 573 homicides. Yet Turley is freaking out because an idiot may have gotten himself, a hippo or both killed. Unless this moron is running for a seat on the Los Angeles City Council, I believe his antics should receive less, not more publicity.
If this hippo had killed him, his family would have claimed victimhood and negligence and sued the zoo. The zoo would have been found liable for not having an unscalable fence 15 feet high around every enclosure. The zoo and its animals would have lost millions.
We clamor for better exhibits so we can view the animals, and then we as a people won’t take personal responsibility for our actions.
I saw this as a near miss for the zoo. The more this happens, the more patrons will miss out as zoo enclosures have to become not only child proof, but adult proof as well. That’s a bit harder for we as a species with opposable thumbs and a penchant for getting into trouble.
This also shows how people are arriving at adulthood having absolutely no idea how to act like a responsible adult.
I’m so sick of the California Crazies. Wish the hippos had the “him” for lunch.
The intruder and assault human needs to be convicted and punished. No jail time. One year of forced labor on the chain gang cleaning up roads in his home neighborhood. One day a week cleaning outhouses. The zoo needs to build a wall. Ask Trump.
I think 6 months of community service picking up tiger poop would be about right. I hear that tiger poop is especially smelly. 😉
I think the better punishment would be to send this human “animal” to San Francisco and let him join the 5 City Government Employees who have just been assigned to clean up the human excrement front the tent cities that Sanctuary City has so embraced. One Health organization just pulled out of holding their annual convention San Francisco strictly because of the human feces in the streets. The Zoo is cleaner than San Francisco streets.
Idiocy? No, This is merely the expression of a damaged hippocampus.
Good one, Darren.
Give the hippo the opportunity to spank back.
I wish the hippo had horned him in his derrière
“Spare the rod, spoil the hippo!” 😊
Looks like he was tryin’ a get closer to his african roots.
Hippos can be nasty. While the fool wasn’t actually in the sunken area occupied by the hippos, those creatures are highly territorial, far more nimble than they look, their jaws are hugely powerful, and they can get up a good head of steam when provoked. It’s a shame he didn’t get closer such that the hippos could have given him a sample of the strength of their jaws.
Many people fail to realize the hippo is among the most ferocious creatures on earth. In fact, hippos routinely take down crocodiles with no effort. It is indeed a foolhardy mission to tangle with these killing machines. It is wise to not confuse what you’ve seen on cartoons with reality.