Zoos

The topic of zoos is very subjective and more than one opinion exist about it. If we think how our life would be if someone would take us out of the Earth and put us on another planet by putting there the “same” environment as if we were on the Earth, it wouldn’t be very nice for us. The articles that I read talk about different issues concerning zoos; one of them talks about how frequent animals’ deaths are becoming in zoos, especially big animals such as elephants, which don’t have enough space to interact. According to Weiner in his article “USAD to investigate death; Experts Zoo not at fault” (2005), the US Department of Agriculture investigated the death of Kedar, a baby elephant who died drowning in a pool at the Syracuse zoo near New York City, and they said that the zoo did nothing wrong. The problem that is being presented about zoos is that they are having a lot of deaths in a short period, so people are concerned about that and they are trying to stop it. According to Farinato of the Human Society (2005, par. 18), the problem that the zoos have too many deaths is because of “the Animal Welfare Act itself: it’s too easy to comply with”, providing elephants only room for “sitting, standing and turning around”. According to “Is There is a Place in the World for Zoos” by David Hancocks, the zoos used to be just to entertain the people, but now modern zoos are operating professionally, providing animals preventive medicine and overall health care, that the traditional thinking of the zoo was so that people can see live animals and learn about them; he said that the animals now receive more attention, and zookeepers are more trained. He also said that some zoos are just only plastic and concrete, and not “natural habitat” (par. 7) in the cages of the animals; “Zoos have a better reputation that they deserve” (Hancocks, 2001, p. 147). After considering the ideas in the articles that I have read, I say we can notice a difference between what the authors said about whether it is a zoo’s fault or not. In my point of view I have different opinions about his problem, but I can agree with both of them in some things.

Talking about zoos always makes controversy, because some people completely agree with them, others don’t, and still others don’t even care about the topic. Knowing that zoos are all over the world, everyone knows some information about it. I’m going to write about three suggestions concerning zoos specifically in New York City. The first one is that we should improve laws to make it more difficult to operate a zoo and that there should be regulations that all zoos should follow; the second one is how we should treat animals in a zoo, that we need to offer them more services; and the last one it is that we have to consider the purpose of zoos, and not allow people to build zoos in cities where animals wouldn’t have enough space to interact.

To take care of animals we have laws and because of that exist laws concerning zoos. According to K. S. Grech (2004, par. 2), laws about zoo animals are divided into three levels, international, federal and local; “On the international level, the Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (CITES) regulates the trade and movement of roughly 5, 000 types of endangered animal species”. Because the only law that exists at the federal level, according to Farinato (2005), is very easy to comply with, we should improve the laws and make them more difficult; in other words, make laws stricter in a good way so that zoos can have better services for the animals, and the animals can live better too; make laws so that it can be better for both sides, animals and zoo’s owners. It is not necessary for these laws to be very difficult, but just necessary so that the animals such as elephants can have more freedom, but not so easy as the Animal Welfare Act. That should be enforced equally, and they also need to be well enforced so that nobody can operate a zoo without them, because if these laws are not enforced and zoos can operate without them, there is no way that a zoo would follow them without breaking them. Grech (2004, par. 3) said that the most important thing is the money provided for conservation and protection to species; she said that there is only a “little application to zoo animals in general”. Grech also said that “there are few statutes to actually protect the welfare of an individual animal”, and, “The real problem lies in the fact the enforcement provisions of these laws are lacking”. Another problem that Grech pointed to is that laws are weak because of the increase in black market of rare and exotic species. Besides zoo animals as Grech said there is a problem with traffic of animals too, so we need to be more determined and not allow anybody to treat badly any animal in the world.

Talking about the traffic in animals, people are using exotic animals to produce different things such as clothes, furniture, medicines, to use it to decorate, etc. It really produces animal extinction because people are hunting animals who are in danger of extinction, so animals are dying before they have babies. It is one of the function of zoosto protect endangered animals.

In the zoos, as we all know, there are different kinds of animals, different species and each of them need, different thing such as space, food, medicines, etc. so we can infer that an animal such as an elephant needs more space than a zebra; we should give them more land to interact in; we should offer them more services. Despite the fact that modern zoos are providing them more services than they used to give, we still need more. “It’s our responsibility to make zoo animals feel comfortable, whatever environment they’re in,” said Laule (AVMA, 2002, par. 11); as Laule said we are responsible to make the animal(s) live and reproduce as if they were where they are supposed to be. If we only give an elephant a very small space to live in, he would live pretty sadly and because of that he can die, and he also needs to be active and do things that he would do if he weren’t in a cage, “We need to address social problems, but also provide greater stimulation, promote natural behavior and give these animals opportunities to express themselves and release energy”, (Laule, 2002). We need more services for them such as land where they can have natural environment, not some plastic rocks or trees to make the cage pretty for the people. “Animals should be respected for what they are as well as what they were,” J. Coe (Walters, 2002, par. 17) said, “and we should create zoo habitats in which animals proactively engage their lives and ours”. We should take care of animals in danger of extinction, because the zoos have too many different species of animals in there, and also have those animals that are in danger; they should protect them and we can also add that they should provide them the environment to make them reproduce; it would be a good way to stop or reduce the issue of animals in danger of extinction.

We should reconsider the purpose of zoos; they were created to entertain people, and allow them to learn about different species of animals, but now this is changing. People are attending more importance to animals; “ Zoos are not farms, where animals are produced specifically for consumption. They should be places that inspire and encourage sympathy for awareness of wildlife” (Hancocks, 2001, p. 142). I agree with him because we need to think in this way so that no more animals die or, even worse, die forever. Now society doesn’t like to see animals in little cages where the animals look very sad, so zoos are creating more attractive places where animals are living by putting plastic things in their space or painting colorful walls to attract their attention. According to Hancocks (2001), we need zoos that consider more in biology, ecology and nature, he also said that we are getting more separate from nature and more closer to a technological and domesticated environment; concerning that, we can explain why we are more interested in seeing zoos all colorful, and we let them to make us think that the animals are living “good” because their cages are really pretty, and have all the space that they need. Animals don’t act or live as well as if they were free, especially big animals such as elephants, “In captivity, elephants are confined to small enclosures, kept with only a few other elephants, if any.” Said K. Grech (2004), “… in captivity, elephants are plagued with diseases such as Tuberculosis, Arthritis, and mental illness…”; elephants not only have inadequate space to live in but they also have to deal with illness that is caused by being in that same space for all their life.

We should think more on the side of animals; nobody would like to live far away from their herd in a totally different environment, and sometimes by themselves, so it is not necessary to have a zoo in each city. We can create a really big one where 5 elephants can live and not 5 places where the elephants would live by themselves. That would really help them because it would be more space for them and at the same time they can interact with other animals from their same species; besides that could be more probability that elephants can reproduce if there are more of them so they can be with the “best” elephant for them; if the people want to see them they can travel to see them. In addition, if there is not enough space for an elephant to live in, they shouldn’t bring him, because they are very big animals and need much more space than any other animals such as birds, zebra, monkeys, penguins, etc. According to Kali Grech (2004), the Detroit Zoo, the San Francisco Zoo and the L. A. Zoo decided to close their elephants’ exposition, and send them to a nationwide sanctuary. We should have wildlife education; we should teach society that we have to take care of all the animals even if they are not as pretty or interesting as they would like. One commenter, Pete (BBC News, 2002) said “ We only preserve only what we love, love only what we know, know only what we are taught.” We should think about it carefully and make people concerned, it is telling us to teach everyone about animals so we can have more sympathy for them, and not do or allow people to do different things that damage or put in danger animals’ life, making us do or think some different ways to help them and try to protect them.

In conclusion, because the zoos are having a lot of deaths in recent years we should do something, and we can start it by improving laws by making them stricter to operate a zoo and also make them enforced better, then the animals in the zoos should be treated better, having more services, more space to interact, providing them the necessary space; and protect animals in danger of extinction, and by the end we should reconsider the purpose of the zoos and not allow people to bring more elephants to the city if they would not provide them the necessities, so the elephant would be comfortable. Education is another important factor to reduce zoos’ problems, and any other problems relating with animals as traffic of animals because it can help to make people think what would happen if someday a huge number of animal species disappeared from the earth. After all, the animals wouldn’t be the only living organism that will be damaged or disturbed because of the bad human use of them, we would be so affect as the animals because we need them to different purposes as they need us as the same way.

















Bibliography

Babwin, D. (2005, May 21). n. The Associated Press State & Local Wire. Lexis-Nexus. October 31, 2005 from Zoo deaths highlight lack of oversight of nation’s zoos.

British Broadcasting Company (BBC) News (2002, October 26). Should zoos let elephants pack their trunks? Talking point. Retrieved November 29 2005 from http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/2352613.stm

Grech, K. S. (2004 a) Brief Summary of the Laws Pertaining to Zoos. Animal Legal & Historical Center. Retrieved November 30, 2005 from http://www.animallaw.info/articles/qvuszoos.htm

Grech, K. S. (2004 b) Overview of the Laws Affecting Zoos. Animal Legal & Historical Center. Retrieved November 30, 2005 from http://www.animallaw.info/articles/ovuszoos.htm

Hancocks, D. (2001), Is there is a Place in the World for Zoos? (Chapter 9), The State of the Animals Retrieved November 14, 2005 from http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&q=cache:2FNEeETxUt8J:files.hsus.org/web-files/PDF/MARK_State_of_Animals_Ch_09.pdf+zoos+protect+animals+in+extinction

Kent, J. (1981). The Biggest Shadow in the Zoo. New York: Parents Magazine Press. New York.

Walters, M. (2002, October 11). Trading Spaces for Better Zoo Animal Welfare. AVMA. Retrieved November 29, 2005 from http://www.avma.org/press/releases/021011_zoo_welfare.asp

Weiner, M. (2005, August 14). USAD to investigate death; Experts: Zoo not at fault. The Post-Standard, Syracuse NY. Retrieved October 24, 2005 from USAD to investigate death; Experts: Zoo not at fault

Sierra Endangered Cat Haven, (n.d.) What is the purpose of a zoo? November 14, 2005 from http://www.cathaven.com/education/controversy_zoopurpose.htm.

Synthesis Exam

Nuclear Testing

Conflict between countries not only has been very harmful to the people who live in the countries where war is happening, it is harmful too to all the people in the world. To have the greatest weapon and use it in the war they need to test it first; about 50 years ago in the U.S. the government tested a nuclear weapon in the state of Nevada causing a lot of problems. One of them is that it polluted other states in the U.S., not only Nevada, because the wind is from the west to the north, Utah, which is the state next to Nevada, has had different health problems since that day. Utahns think that their diseases are caused by radioactive fallout produced by testing nuclear weapon. People are trying to make the government stop doing nuclear testing.

There has been a lot of controversy between the government and society about nuclear testing, whether or not to do it, and there are a lot of comments about it. Concerning that we shouldn’t allow anybody to do nuclear testing anyplace; the government should do something to clean the residue that nuclear testing left in the city or place where it was tested. The main point that really will stop this problem is that we should as a society work together and not follow war’s thinking.

Because not only the people or the country who are going to receive the weapon is going to suffer but also the people where the weapon is tested, we shouldn’t allow anybody to do it. Radiation that produced nuclear testing is very harmful to our health, without mentioning animals’ health and plants, it can cause irreversible diseases as in Utah, Nevada and northern of Arizona where “… children and others living in downwind areas were beginning to develop leukemia… cancer and thyroid ills” (Soloman, 2001, p.1). One victim of nuclear diseases, “Bill Endsley, who grew up in Cedar City and endured hundreds of nuclear blasts, said the radiation… gave him skin cancers and melanomas”(Gluber, 2004, par. 1). Besides, not only is the U. S. going to resume nuclear test, Von Hippel (2002) said that it might incite other countries to do it too, so it could be a world huge problem if we allow them to do it; it can hurts too many lives.

Since the problem of nuclear contamination already exists in Utah, Nevada and part of Arizona, the government should do something to rectify the mistake. According to T. Batt from Las Vegas Review Journal (2002) in January Citizen Alert blamed the federal government because it said that the government didn’t clean adequately after nuclear tests, contaminating groundwater. I think that nuclear waste is very difficult to clean or to make disappear from the phase of the planet, but it exists, so the government should do something to stop it and provide money to make the adequate research that can help to solve the problem.

The real main solution to this problem is if we stop the conflicts between countries, or at least stop using this type or weapon that the only thing they do is kill everybody including the people who created it. The fear of the creation of new nuclear weapons is more and more real; “the [U.S. is] trying to make nuclear weapons an instrument of solving military tasks [and] lower the threshold of nuclear weapons use, Baluyevsky said. “Shouldn’t we react to that?” (Zaitchik, 2004, pars. 4-6). If we stop the ambition and avarice, there wouldn’t be any more wars or conflicts so we wouldn’t have to worry about weapons and we could live in peace and enjoy all that we have, such as family, friends, environment, animals, etc.

In conclusion nuclear testing is producing a lot of irreversible diseases in humans besides changing the air and as a result polluting the environment and animals, etc.; we shouldn’t allow the government to do more nuclear tests, we should ask the government to clean or to find a solution to remove all the nuclear wastes, and the most important thing is make people change their mind so that they don’t think anymore about making wars.

Reference:
Batt T. (Apr. 7, 2002) Las Vegas Review Journal
Davidson, L. (March 24, 2004) Desert Morning News
Evenson, B. (April 18, 2004)Salt Lake Tribune
Gluber, H. (March 24, 2004) The Specntrum
Salt Lake Tribune (Mar. 30, 2004)
Libertarian Party Press release (Aug. 8, 1997)
Soloman, N. (Jan. 27, 2001) Pravda.RU
Zaitchik, A. (Feb. 17, 2004) nypress.com

Immigrants and Education in US
Immigration is caused by different reasons, such as religion, politics and economics, etc. According to the article “How Immigrants Fare in US Education” written by Georges Vernez and Allan Abrahamse (1996), immigrant children and youths in America are increasing, and they sooner or later will enter in the national economy. Children of immigrants are not always adequately prepared academically and 75% are concentrated in California, Florida, Illinois, New York. Immigrant children mostly study at primary and middle school just as American children; there are fewer coming into high schools. Immigrants in the US are from different countries and each of them work in different ways, “Asian immigrant generally performed best on indicators of preparation for college, followed by white and black immigrants. Hispanic immigrants performed the lowest on… college preparation.” (Vernez and Abrahamse, 1996). Children of immigrants have to deal with two big problems, the language and cultural norms. Asian immigrants are more likely to continue their education, college, than Hispanic immigrants; this fact can be because of the family education and aspirations.

Concerning about immigration in the US and how Hispanic people are performing in there, I feel very disappointed and sad, because it is not pleasant to hear that your people are not very interested in education and that they are conformists. I agree with the reason that Vernez and Abrahamse said, the main point lies in the family, what the parents teach their children what the wishes are for each member of the family, and I also think that the children want to be like their parents, and if they don’t have education and they could survive without it, they could do the same thing as long as they have the necessities to live.

Another reason that Asian, white and blacks have higher scores than Hispanic is the culture, I’m not saying that Hispanic culture says not to study but the majority of the people don’t want to study, don’t like to read, to do research, however nobody can say that all Hispanic are like that because is not true, there are Hispanic immigrants who are performing so good than in sometimes native Americans.


Reference:
Abrahamse, A. and Vernez, G. (1996) “How Immigrants Fare in US Education”. Retrieved from Rand, http://www.rand.org/publications/MR/MR718/. Retrieved November 15, 2005.

Argumentative Essay

Zoos

The topic of zoos is very subjective and more than one opinion exist about it. The articles that I read talk about how frequent animals’ deaths are becoming in zoos, especially big animals such as elephants, which don’t have enough space to interact. According to Weiner in his article “USAD to investigate death; Experts Zoo not at fault” (2005), the US Department of Agriculture investigated the death of Kedar, a baby elephant who died drowning in a pool at the Syracuse zoo in New York City, and they said that the zoo did nothing wrong. The problem that is being presented about zoos is that they are having a lot of deaths in a short period so people are concerned about that and they are trying to stop it. According to Farinato of the Human Society (2005, par. 18), the problem that the zoos have too many deaths is because of “the Animal Welfare Act itself: it’s too easy to comply with”, providing them room for “sitting, standing and turning around”. According to “Is There is a Place in the World for Zoos” by David Hancoks, the zoos used to be just to entertain the people but now modern zoos are operating professionally, providing them preventive medicine and overall health care; he said that the animals now receive more attention, zookeepers are more trained. He also said that some zoos are just only plastic and concrete, and not “natural habitat” (par. 7) in the cages of the animals. After considering the ideas in the articles that I have read, I say we can notice a difference between what the authors said about whether it is a zoo’s fault or not. In my point of view I have different opinions about his problem, but I can agree with both of them in some things.

Talking about zoos always makes controversy, because some people completely agree with them, other don’t, and still others don’t even care about the topic. Knowing that zoos are all over the world, everyone knows some information about it. I’m going to write about three suggestions concerning to zoos specifically in New York City. The first one is that we should improve laws to make it more difficult to operate a zoo and that there should be regulations that all zoos should follow; the second one is how we should treat animals in a zoo, that we need to offer them more services; and the last one it is that we have to consider the purpose of zoos, and not allow people to build zoos in cities where animals wouldn’t have enough space to interact.

Because the only law that exists, according to Farinato, is very easy to comply with, we should improve the laws and make them more difficult, in other words make laws stricter in a good way so that zoos can have better services for the animals, and the animals can live better too; make laws that it can be better for both sides, animals and zoo’s owners. If is not necessary for these laws to be very difficult, but just necessary so that the animals such as elephants can have more freedom, but not so easy as the Animal Welfare Act, that should be something equal, and they also need to be legal so that nobody can operate a zoo without them, because if these laws are not legal and zoos can operate without them there is no way that a zoo would follow them without breaking them.

An animal such as an elephant needs more space than a zebra; we should give them more land to interact in; we should offer them more services, despite the fact that modern zoos are providing them more services than they used to give; we still need more. If we only give an elephant a very small space to live in, he would live pretty sad and because of that he can die, and he also needs to be active and do things that he would do if he weren’t in a cage. We need more services for them such as land where they can have natural environment, not some plastic rocks or trees to make the cage pretty for the people. We should take care of animals in danger of extinction, because the zoos have too many different species of animals in there, and also have those animals that are in danger; they should protect them.

We should reconsider the purpose of zoos; they were created to entertain people, but now this is changing. People don’t like to see animals in little cages where the animals look very sad, so zoos are creating more attractive places where animals are living by putting plastic things or painting colorful walls to attract their attention. We should think more on the side of animals; nobody would like to live far away from their herd in a totally different environment, and sometimes by themselves, so it is not necessary to have a zoo in each city. We can create a really big one where 5 elephants can live and not 5 places where the elephants would live by themselves. That would really help them because it would be more space for them and at the same time they can interact with other animals from their same species, and if the people want to see them they can travel to see them. In addition, if there is not enough space for an elephant to live, they shouldn’t bring him, because they are very big animals and need much more space than any other animals such as birds, zebra, monkeys, penguins, etc.

In conclusion, because the zoos are having a lot of deaths on recent years we should do something, and we can start it by improving laws to operate a zoo and make them legal, then the animals in the zoos should be treated better, having more services, more space to interact, and protect animals in danger of extinction, and by the end we should reconsider the purpose of the zoos and not allow people to bring more elephants to the city if they would not provide them the necessities so the elephant would be comfortable.

Reference:
Babwin, D. (2005, May 21). Zoo deaths highlight lack of oversight of nation’s zoos. The Associated Press State & Local Wire. Lexis-Nexus. Retrieved October 31, 2005.

Hancocks, D. (2001), Is there is a Place in the World for Zoos? (Chapter 9), The State of the Animals Retrieved from http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&q=cache:2FNEeETxUt8J:files.hsus.org/web-files/PDF/MARK_State_of_Animals_Ch_09.pdf+zoos+protect+animals+in+extinction Retrieved November 14, 2005.

Weiner, M. (2005, August 14). USAD to investigate death; Experts: Zoo not at fault. The Post-Standard, Syracuse NY. Retrieved October 24, 2005.

What is the purpose of a zoo? Retrieved from http://www.cathaven.com/education/controversy_zoopurpose.htm Retrieved November 14, 2005

Research Paper Proposal


Zoos

I started getting interested in zoos because of this assignment, and while I was reading more and more about that, I became more interested. The articles that I read talk about how frequent animal’s deaths becoming the animal’s death becoming in zoos, especially big animals such as elephants, who don't have enough space to interact. According to Weiner on his article “USAD to investigate death; Experts Zoo not at fault”, (2005) said that The US Department of Agriculture investigated Kedar’s death, a baby elephant who died drowning in a pool at the Syracuse zoo in New York City, they said that the zoo did nothing wrong. The problem that is been presenting about zoos is that they are having a lot of deaths in a short period so people are concern about that and they are trying to stop it. According to Farinato of the human society (2005, par. 18), the problem that the zoos have too many deaths is because of ”the Animal Welfare Act itself: its too easy to comply with”, “ providing them room for “sitting, standing and turning around”. Considering the ideas in the two articles that I have read, I sat we can notice a difference between what the authors said about whether it is zoo’s fault or not. In my point of view I have a different opinions about this problem, but I can agree with both of them in some things.

Talking about zoos always makes controversy, because some people completely agree with them, other don't, and still others don't even care about the topic. Knowing that zoos are all over the world, everyone knows some information about it. I’m going to write about three suggestions concerning about zoos specifically in New York City. The first one is how animals in a zoo are treated; the second one is about elephant’s needs and the last one about the purpose of having zoos.

I have found many articles about deaths in zoos, especially elephant’s deaths, and also about which zoos have had several deaths in these years. I’ll need more information about conditions that the zoo provides to the animals and how are they treated, besides more information about the purpose of having zoos.


Reference:
Babwin, D. (2005, May 21). Zoo deaths highlight lack of oversight of nation’s zoos. The Associated Press State & Local Wire. Lexis-Nexus. Retrieved October 31, 2005.

Weiner, M. (2005, August 14). USAD to investigate death; Experts: Zoo not at fault. The Post-Standard, Syracuse NY. Retrieved October 25, 2005.

ZOOS AND ANIMALS’ DEADHTS

Although when an animal died in a zoo, it is not as important as news about people such as murders, kidnapping, drug traffic, etc., we have to do something to stop this issue. According to Don Babwin in his article “Zoo deaths highlight lack of oversight of nation’s zoos”, from The Associated Press State & Local Wire, when an animal died in a zoo it is not so important and people don’t pay attention to that, but when a zoo has a series of deaths in a certain period of time, people start getting involved. The US Department of Agriculture is charged with inspecting zoos but it is not enough; however they have the authority to revoke a public zoo’s license, even though the zoo can continue operating without it. According to R. Firinato of the Humans Society, the zoo needs to provide “sitting, standing, and turning around” to the animals in there.

I agree with the author about the fact that people need to pay attention to this problem. One thing that I think is a cause are the rules that the USDA practices, and because those are too easy to follow, because they only ask for the essential, space in which the animal can have normal postures and some freedom to move; in addition, they don’t need to have water all the time only when its necessary for the animal, so I think it is normal that animals died because of the types of care that they used.

I completely believe that when an animal died because of malnutrition, or because they ate something that they shouldn’t have eaten or because of an illness that wasn’t well enough treated, it is the fault of the zoo. They have the responsibility to feed them what is necessary to be healthy, and be aware where they put poison for other animals; they also need to have the necessary medicines to treat all illnesses that can be handled. Someone can disagree with me and say that I can’t blame the zoo because of that, but if the zoo took out the animals from their natural environment they must be capable of taking care of them and finding the way to provide them all their needs.

After a zoo has a lot of deaths in its record, I think that the zoo needs to be investigated and in certain cases closed before this problem gets worse. My offer to stop it is to create useful rules and make those obligatory; also, all the zoos should need to have a permission to operate and without it, don’t allow them to operate; provide the animal the environment he should have, the same things as if he were in his natural environment, not only what is necessary to live; that would be the least thing that the zoo should offer to him.

One of the good things that the zoo has is that they make people be together and at the same time far away from the stress of modern life. In this generation where many people drink and use drugs, and where the family is losing its importance, where everything is moving so fast, etc., the zoo is one of the greatest places to visit and to be with the family, teaching the kids since their are little the meaning of the family and sharing emotions, time, love, etc., besides having a great time with friends.

In conclusion, putting apart the good things that the zoo has, they need to improve their techniques to operate, making those more efficient, and giving the animals more than they are giving them right now, so if the animals die it wouldn’t be because of the zoo; it would be because they died for natural reasons.





Reference:
Babwin, D. (2005, May 21). Zoo deaths highlight lack of oversight of nation’s zoos. The Associated Press State & Local Wire. Lexis-Nexus. Retrieved October 31, 2005

For more inforamation go to Zoo deaths highlight lack of oversight of nation's zoos

Pope John Paul II

Thinking about a hero I found Pope John Paul II. According to his biography from "Holly See Press Office", he's real name was Karol Józef Wojtyla in Polish; he was the youngest of 3 children; his mother died when he was 8 years old, when he was 12 yeras old his brother died and after 9 years his father died and his sister died before he was born. He started University in a school of drama, but he had to work because the Nazis occupated and clossed the University. He studied in a clandestine seminary, he witnessed of the Second World War. He studied a doctorate in theology. He was elected Pope on October 1978. "He mande 104 pastoral visits outside Italy and 146 with in Italy" also "he visited 317 of the city's 333 parishes".


Hoi Lin

For more information go to Holiness John Paul II,
Short Biography

Zoo’s Elephants in New York City


Kedar the baby elephant, who died drowning in a pool at the Syracuse zoo, started an investigation into the zoo’s treatment of animals. According to Mark Weiner, writer from The Post-Standard, the death of Kedar was the cause of The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s deciding to investigate the Rosamond Gifford Zoo’s elephant program in Syracuse, New York. The zoo staff was interviewed, and investigators took photos for the case. Anne Baker, the zoo director, tried to excuse Kedar’s death, but the inspectors told her to block off the deep end of the pool, before the next elephant is born. In addition National elephant experts say that The Syracuse zoo has always done all they have to do for elephant’s care, and they also say that the zoo did nothing wrong.

In my opinion, taking care of an animal such a dog or a cat is very hard work and requires a lot of attention and time, and it is even harder to take care of a big animal such as an elephant. Kedar’s death was an accident, but it was so unexpected because it happened at the zoo, and is even weirder when an animal dies there by accident. However The Syracuse zoo has been taking care of more than six elephants, and the baby’s death was the first elephant that died at the zoo.

It is always dangerous when you take an animal out from its natural environment, and it is your responsibility to feed him and give him all he needs to survive; I know those kinds of acts are done because of the people, to entertain them. I don’t agree with that because they are living beings and they need to be in their natural environment and do things that they normally do.

Concerning elephants, who are really big animals and need a lot of conditions to be in their normal environment, my best suggestion is to create a big zoo where they can live freely, and not behind bars, and also provide them food and medicines, where people can see them as if they were in a regular zoo; besides, this zoo has to have the same or more staff than the regular one, and besides have enough animals, not more than they can handle.

Although I don’t blame the zoo for the death of the elephant, and I don’t enjoy seeing animals behind bars, living apart from their herds, I totally agree when the zoo tries to take care of animals in danger of extinction, and show the people many animals that we probably will never see, and create places where kids can play and live far from the vicious, getting families together, etc.

In conclusion, zoos have good and bad things. But in the Kedar’s case it was an accident, and that could have happened in a natural environment; besides, I don’t think that negligence caused Kedar’s death, because the zoo is supported by animals, and people go to the zoo to see them, and if the zoo is not taking care of them, and their animals are dying, they wouldn’t have enough animals and the people wouldn’t want to go anymore, and they would lose their job.

Reference: Weiner, M. (2005, August 14) “USAD to investigate death; Experts: Zoo not at fault”. The Post-Standard, Syracuse N.Y, LexisNexis. Retrieved October, 25,2005

For more information go to The Post-Standard

“Hot nights”, New York City

“Hot nights in the city: New York’s environmental future”, by Alan Whyte, expresses his concern about global warming and the consequences that it is causing to New York. According to Whyte New York City in the early years has presented an increase in the temperatures, which became a very serious problem, causing other problems, such as, diseases, deaths, severe storms, growing infectious diseases, etc. The increase of the temperature was cause by many factors, such as burning fossil fuels and deforestation; most of them were produced by the industrial process and human activities. In addition, Alan Whyte tried to show us the future of New York.

In my opinion global warming has become a very important issue, although not everybody think is that way, and they are doing the same thing and that is making worse the situation of the Earth. The problem could be stopped if people changed their behavior, and I think that can be possible if the government helps with activities that show methods to prevent or stop global warming. I think a method that can really help is recycling as more as possible.

New York and the entire world have been presented with the effects of global warming, such as big storms, high temperatures, infectious disease, air pollution, etc. because of many factors. One of the most important factors is industry that polluted rivers, air, soil, etc. They throw away their waste and burning things producing smoke and polluting the air. Then when the toxic wastes of industry are in the rivers because of the course of the water, the toxics stay on the land; after that plants take it, and animals eat the plants, then we eat the animals so we are eating animals or plants with toxic substances, and we are more likely to get infectious diseases. Although the first effect (storms) we can’t control, we can prevent them and be prepared. The second effect produced by industry, in my opinion we have so many ways that we can stop it. The main idea is create a punishment for factories that polluted the Earth or making them to clean it.

An other factor is deforestation; people are cutting down trees more than they should, for economic reasons, such as producing paper, furniture, building buildings, etc. As a result we have less oxygen produced by trees, and the oceans are getting hotter producing big storms like hurricanes, leaving families without homes, destroying cities or towns, and changing the temperature of the whole planet.

I’m very worried about the future of the world, because if we don’t do something to change or stop the global warming, there will be more and more consequences, and one of them that I think is one of the worst, is the increase of infectious diseases, and also the cause of new virus or making stronger the viruses that exist right now. As a result we would have more illness, and some of them would be stronger, so it would be very difficult to destroy them or to prevent them, and support all the people with enough medicines, vaccines, in other words health services.

In conclusion, global warming is a very serious problem that we should stop. We have to make some ways to reduce and stop the effects of that by changing our behavior and becoming aware of the problems produced by global warming.

Reference: Whyte, A. (1999, August 17) “Hot nights in the city: New York City’s environmental future. World Socialist Web Site. Retrieved Oct, 20,2005 from http://www.wsws.org/articles/1999/aug1999/nyc-s17.shtml


For more informaton go to "Hot Nights" in New York

Environmental Problem

Mexico, like other countries, has a lot of environmental problems. One of the biggest problems in Mexico is the pollution, which is produced by cars, cutting down trees more than they should have, using toxic substances, etc. The problem that I’m closest to is the use of pesticides and other toxic substances to kill or prevent illness in the cultivation; this problem has increased because now people want to earn more money, and they could do that, by producing more goods; as a result, they use more chemical substances to improve their production. Another problem that involves that, is that in the early years in my town, people were selling their lands to companies that built houses, and our main profit is on agriculture, so we wouldn’t have enough land to cultivate a few years later, and that would cause us to have a lot of unemployment. In addition, the methods that agriculturists use provoke some diseases, such as: cancer, allergies, etc. By the way, now people are concerned about the problems, and they are using biological substances that help the crops to grow and be healthful without using pesticides.

For more information go to Mexico: Environmental Issues