Poor, caged animals.....

I drove over to the civic center this evening to see if I could see them unloading the animals or setting up. It turns out we missed it.... They did however, have the animals outside in cages, with a small tarp over them.

Now, for those of you who didn't know, Zebras are members of the horse family that live in Africa. They can be found in a wide range of habitats, including grasslands, savannas, woodlands, mountains and coastal hills.

zebras and Plains zebras live in groups, known as 'harems', consisting of one stallion with up to sixAccording to the ever-knowledgeable wikipedia, "Like most members of the horse family, zebras are highly sociable. Their social structure, however, depends on the species. Mountain mares and their foals. Bachelor males either live alone or with groups of other bachelors until they are old enough to challenge a breeding stallion. When attacked by packs of hyenas or wild dogs, a zebra group will huddle together with the foals in the middle while the stallion tries to ward them off."

Clearly these are very social animals.... not ones to be locked up in a cage, only able to look at each other through the bars that separate them.

Next to the zebras, I was able to catch a glimpse of one of the elephants they brought. (please excuse the low fidelity of the pictures - we had to be careful not to use flash, so they're a little blurry.) This poor elephant, one that would normally also be found in Africa, was chained by two legs. She was rocking back and forth constantly - a tell-tale sign of extreme boredom. She would have been pacing, but that wasn't an option. I took a short video of it and stuck it up on Youtube. What a terrible, terrible shame...