whence personal responsibility?

[cellio]

A story in today's paper reported that in Richmond VA, in a city park with fenced areas for animals, the park-keepers killed two black bears because one of them bit a child and they had to find out if there was a threat of rabies. (The only test for rabies in an animal kills the animal.) These bears have been in that park for years, and when the news broke (days after the deed was done), people in the community were outraged.

The child, four years old and accompanied by his mother, bypassed one four-foot-high barrier and then put his hand through a larger chain-link fence. The article didn't say, but I assume there were plenty of "keep away from the bears" signs too, in case two fences didn't make that point. The child got bitten (not badly enough to require stitches). Mom couldn't identify the biting bear, so both of the bears in that pen were killed.

Rabies is an unpleasant disease, but it is treatable. The treatment is painful, but many people have to undergo it because they have no choice. Sometimes you do something stupid and have to suffer the consequences; sometimes you're just in the wrong place at the wrong time and, yet, you still have to suffer the consequences. Life isn't fair, and sometimes no one is at fault.

Accidents happen, and the kid here is not to blame. For all we know, neither is the mother -- there are conflicting reports about whether she helped him climb the first barrier or looked away for a moment and he did it on his own. But that doesn't matter (except for settling the tort); even if this was completely an accident, a fluke, people have to accept some personal responsibility. It appears that someone made a decision to test the bears instead of treating the kid just in case; I think that decision was wrong.

There was clearly no fault on the part of the park or the bears themselves, so the child's discomfort is not adequate reason for killing the bears. The child, and the mother, could have gotten a valuable lesson about personal responsibility here, but they didn't. It probably didn't even occur to the parents, because we increasingly live in a world where the meme is "protection over everything, and when that doesn't work find someone to take it out on". But that doesn't help kids grow up into responsible adults, and you can't child-proof (and idiot-proof) the world anyway.

We are becoming, and raising, a nation of spoiled brats, who think that if they're unhappy, there must be someone to punish -- as if that makes anything any better. Punishment should be reserved for willful acts (including negligence). When there is clearly no fault, we need to minimize the overall damage, not our personal damage.

By the way, the bears tested negative.

Comments

pet peeve at the zoo

[otterblossom.livejournal.com]

One of the jobs of the attendant in the goat yard at the zoo is to keep an eye out and holler at people to get out of the camel enclosure. There's two fences and signs up that Molly the Camel bites.
We're usually hoarse by the end of the day.
Molly got one boy by the front of the shirt and picked him up. She dropped him when he screeched. I walked over, this is why you don't climb over fences at a zoo.

Re: pet peeve at the zoo

[cellio]

A little bit of current through that fence might do wonders. :-)

People are stupid, and every time we as a society coddle them instead of saying "well, you should have known better", they get stupider. I'm surprised that zoos don't require people to sign waivers at the door by now.

Re: pet peeve at the zoo

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

Why do you think people are stupider than they used to be? IIRC, there've been occasional cases of kids sneaking into zoo enclosures for a very long time.

Re: pet peeve at the zoo

[cellio]

I'm basing it on the increasing frequency, prominence, and vehemence of product and environmental warnings for things that ought to be obvious. At some level that's lawsuit-insurance, but I suspect there's an element of perceived necessity too. There are also a lot more automatic safety features in things than there used to be (even when they get in the way), which may be indicative.

Re: pet peeve at the zoo

[tangerinpenguin.livejournal.com]

I think nancylebov may have a point; there are more lawsuits over these things, which are driving more defensive measures, but that doesn't mean that people weren't ignoring the obvious and it just didn't go to court as often.

Re: pet peeve at the zoo

[cellio]

That's a good point. There may have been more collective wiillingness to say "well, you had that coming, dummy" in the past than there is now.

Re: pet peeve at the zoo

[cvirtue.livejournal.com]

I belive you are exactly correct.

Two days ago, I was completely astonished, as I read "Farmer Boy*" to the kids, to hear the father say that if the hoodlums at the school beat the teacher up, even to killing him, that was the teacher's look-out, because he was a Man, and he knew what he was getting into. "He wouldn't thank anyone for interfering."

*Laura Ingalls Wilder's husband's story.

Re: pet peeve at the zoo

[chaos-wrangler.livejournal.com]

When I worked at a zoo one summer (about 2 decades ago) our oft-repeated phrase at the children's zoo was "Don't lean on the Plexiglas". When asked why, the response was that if the glass broke and the animal (raccoon, skunk, etc) bit someone, we'd have to kill the animal to prove it didn't have rabies. We sometimes included a sentence or two on how the animal might well bite to protect itself from someone it would justifiably see as invading its home and/or attacking it...