Having lived in the area for several decades: there are leopards about already! It's actually kind of impressive that the zebra managed to avoid becoming cougar lunch, it's not like she blends in with the local moss and trees very well...
Tangential, but let’s talk collective nouns of animals. I’ve encountered people who are happy to know what a collective of x, and their amusement about how well the noun fits an animal group.
It seems to be lost on the general population how deliberate word choice ends up being, and how certain people throughout time have tried to make some words happen. Mark Fraunfelder comes to mind around some Internet lingo. Some sticks, some doesn’t.
This gives me a chance to bring up my favorite collective noun for a group of animals: a bloat of hippopotami. Although a "dazzle" of zebras comes a second close. One of my favorite quirks of English, don't think other languages have our penchant for giving animal groups special names.
They are, sure, but they're really fun and some of them caught on. I think it's the exact kind of funny little thing we should encourage, language doesn't have to be serious.
Japanese has 3 counting particles for animals. The generic one is 匹 "hiki" (ippiki, ni-hiki, san-biki) for dogs, cats, insects, fish, etc. Larger animals like horses and elephants use 頭 "toh" meaning "heads". Birds and rabbits use 羽 "wa" which means "wings." There are various theories why rabbits get counted the same as birds, possibly because rabbit meat tastes like chicken.
and all the humans were cheaply amused by the animal temporarily breaking free from its own captivity albeit thousands of miles and an ocean away from where it actually belongs.
let’s not be intentionally naive here; petting zoos sometimes have exotic animals (like zebras) but mostly contain animals like donkeys, sheep, toy ponies, etc. There are many places to take a stance on animal care and rights, as well as things to criticize involving this incident, but petting zoos are a weird hill to die on regarding this matter. You should consider bringing your children to one soon if you have any, they’re a little smelly (mainly because they’re usually adjacent/close to a farm), but pretty fun, especially if the people running it are educated.
For the record, zebras are some of last animals you'd expect to see in a petting zoo. They are actively unfriendly. The San Diego Zoo lets you interact with rhinos and cheetahs more than zebras.
> Three were quickly captured after being corralled in a pasture. But the fourth — a mare called “Z” — hopped a fence and has proved more elusive
A zebra called “Z”? Sounds like the pilot of a Saturday morning cartoon. The other three were its mentor, its best friend, and its childhood friend love interest called “Ebra”.
This off-topic and it isn't your fault, but 'I Zimbra', first song on 'Fear of Music' by the Talking Heads, just popped into my head and it's not going away.
I'm expecting others to come up with the Bond references.
It's also the kind of thing that makes me instinctively read it in American, like 'EZ'. I'm British, I don't say zee or zeebra, but I don't think somebody that says zebra would think to name a zebra Zed.
It's not because it's a threat, it was to make it easier to catch the zebra, which has been getting spooked by all these extra people hoping to see it. There's been all sorts of folks out there causing it to panic and run away. They tried asking people not to "help", and it didn't help, so then they closed trails etc.
Talk about things to get tired of, it's people automatically thinking things are nannying, or whatever their specific anti-todays-government thing is, and then being sure to spread what they have decided something is, in their infinite wisdom, without taking even a few minutes to think beyond their immediate bias.
The unhelpful behavior is too many people coming out to try to see the zebra which scare it into running away.
How other than closing the trail while they search could they realistically target that behavior? Put checkpoints at all the entrances and only let people in who could prove they had planned their outing before the zebra got loose? Require people to attend a lecture on not scaring the zebra and pass a test showing they understood before they can use the trail?
I believe that whenever any animal we, as a society, enslave managed to get away from its enclosure (like a prison break), once recaptured, they are then allowed to live in a specific area/sanctuary for the rest of their life. Be it a zebra, cow or chicken.
I just would love to think that if I happened to be turned into one of those animals, if I still retained part of my intelligence and had a bit of luck, I would be able to free myself from the imprisonment.
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[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 101 ms ] threadIt seems to be lost on the general population how deliberate word choice ends up being, and how certain people throughout time have tried to make some words happen. Mark Fraunfelder comes to mind around some Internet lingo. Some sticks, some doesn’t.
[1] https://es.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nombre_colectivo [2] https://pt.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substantivo_coletivo
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_noun#Terms_of_vener...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_animal_names
petting zoos are still a thing? how quaint.
might i suggest anything narrated by Sir David Attenborough.
I've come to like Prehistoric Planet[0]. The CGI is so good, you can practically smell the beasties.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prehistoric_Planet
[1]. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madagascar_(2005_film)
A zebra called “Z”? Sounds like the pilot of a Saturday morning cartoon. The other three were its mentor, its best friend, and its childhood friend love interest called “Ebra”.
I'm expecting others to come up with the Bond references.
So tired of this nanny attitude.
> People trying to come out to see the zebra may be spooking it and making it harder to recapture the animal, they said.
Seems very heavy handed. These park staff really seem to forget who they work for.
I’m still annoyed that they closed trails during Covid. Avoid the outdoors, do inside activities instead…
I always assumed this was more about personnel than users of the trail.
Talk about things to get tired of, it's people automatically thinking things are nannying, or whatever their specific anti-todays-government thing is, and then being sure to spread what they have decided something is, in their infinite wisdom, without taking even a few minutes to think beyond their immediate bias.
We all own nature.
How other than closing the trail while they search could they realistically target that behavior? Put checkpoints at all the entrances and only let people in who could prove they had planned their outing before the zebra got loose? Require people to attend a lecture on not scaring the zebra and pass a test showing they understood before they can use the trail?
I just would love to think that if I happened to be turned into one of those animals, if I still retained part of my intelligence and had a bit of luck, I would be able to free myself from the imprisonment.
ok