Summary
A baby red panda named Roxie at the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland died from “stress caused by fireworks” after choking on her vomit, just days after her mother’s sudden death.
The incident, occurring around the U.K.’s Bonfire Night celebrations, has led to renewed calls for stricter fireworks regulations.
A petition with over a million signatures urging restrictions on public fireworks sales was submitted to the U.K. government.
Edinburgh recently implemented limited fireworks control zones, but animal welfare advocates argue for broader measures to prevent similar tragedies.
Neither one has to be correct. One experts opinion is that they couldn’t rule it out. That sounds reasonable. I do think that the zoo bares some responsibility for bringing such a fragile species into a city. Zoo’s do a lot of good too. But they knew there would be fireworks. Where were they? Why wasn’t someone there to take the baby to it’s enclosure. Or sedate it during the fireworks. People do more for their adult dogs than the zoo did for this baby. I don’t think it’s a cover up or anything. They have lot’s of experts. They quoted the one that said the most sensational thing. I am not saying disregard the experts, I am saying a hand picked (by people with an agenda) sample size of one is not evidence of anything. I am willing to bet if you took a poll of all of the experts at that zoo, you would get a much less confident opinion, more like the “can’t rule it out” than the “fireworks killed the baby” person.
The fact of the matter is that you or I don’t really have any information what the zoo did for this baby or did not. Most everything in this topic is pure speculation and has to do with more how people see the world through their eyes than any evidence or fact. The only piece of evidence we have is what the vet experts have said. Anything else is a huge “maybe”.
That is a much stronger statement that, “fireworks was probably not the cause of this”. They could also have just gone with “stress due to loss of the mother” easily and no one would really think twice about it. But they did choose to make this statement. Experienced vet surgeons/nurses etc who have had the opportunity to experience how animals behave under these conditions many many times. Also mind you this one way the news has been reported, I have seen multiple instance where the wording is more stronger such as:
"Very sadly, she choked on her vomit on Bonfire Night and our vets believe this was probably a reaction to fireworks,” said Ben Supple, RZSS’s deputy chief executive. Roxie had access to her den but the frightening noises seem to have been too much for her. We are also concerned that fireworks cause stress to other animals in the zoo.”
I have seen remarks in this topic ranging from “their vets are just the zookepers” to “animals don’t vomit because of fireworks”. It is just ridiculous. Even these vet experts have not made their statements in such certainty as the people in this topic.
“But they did choose to make this statement” they answered a question honestly. They didn’t choose the question. And I agree we don’t know what the vets are actually saying. We know only what the media reports. Which is my point. People are putting words into the vets mouths that maybe one vet might say, but others clearly disagree with. The article doesn’t represent the vets (collective) point of view. So anyone saying the vets are wrong is mistaken because they don’t even know what the vets really think. And similar for saying the vets are right.