{"id":445,"date":"2010-01-06T06:36:11","date_gmt":"2010-01-05T20:36:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sketharaman.com\/blog\/?p=445"},"modified":"2010-01-07T03:08:06","modified_gmt":"2010-01-06T17:08:06","slug":"of-black-swans-and-white-tigers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sketharaman.com\/blog\/2010\/01\/06\/of-black-swans-and-white-tigers\/","title":{"rendered":"Of Black Swans And White Tigers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/sketharaman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/12\/mz_wt01_3001.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/sketharaman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/12\/mz_bs01.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-451\" title=\"mz_bs01_300\" src=\"http:\/\/sketharaman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/12\/mz_bs01_300.jpg\" alt=\"mz_bs01_300\" width=\"300\" height=\"239\" \/><\/a>I can easily understand Alex Gross&#8217;s complaint with the Seattle zoo where he takes his son in <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.jamespatterson.co.uk\" target=\"_blank\">James Patterson&#8217;s<\/a><\/strong> novel <em><strong>London Bridges<\/strong> <\/em>since my family and I have faced similar problems during our visits to zoos in Katraj (Pune, India), Cologne and Stuttgart (both in Germany), and Colchester and London (both in the UK). Like these zoos, the one\u00a0in Seattle uses the natural habitat format where animals are not locked up in cages and can instead roam around in large expanses of wooded lands resembling forests. However, people eager to see animals often return disappointed from their trips to natural habitat\u00a0 zoos since animals who are free to roam around\u00a0make full use of their freedom and regularly stray away from the viewing areas where\u00a0visitors wait eagerly &#8211; and often in vain &#8211; to view them.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/sketharaman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/12\/mz_wt01_300.jpg\"><\/a>This problem is acutely magnified in wildlife sanctuaries. During a trip to Mudumalai wildlife sanctuary located at\u00a0the border of Tamilnadu,\u00a0Karnataka and Kerala &#8211; three\u00a0south Indian states, for the uninitiated &#8211; last year, we were disappointed at not being able to see a\u00a0single tiger for which this sanctuary is renowned. Forest officials assured us that there were enough tigers\u00a0in the sanctuary, only that they were roaming around\u00a0somewhere beyond the trails covered by the official bus tour.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/sketharaman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/12\/mz_bs01_300.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/sketharaman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/12\/mz_wt01_300.jpg\"><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/sketharaman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/12\/mz_wt01.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-454\" title=\"mz_wt01_300\" src=\"http:\/\/sketharaman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/12\/mz_wt01_3001.jpg\" alt=\"mz_wt01_300\" width=\"300\" height=\"252\" \/><\/a>In sharp contrast, the Mysore Zoo strikes the right balance between\u00a0the cage and natural habitat formats. Where there are cages, they are large and afford plenty of space for the animals to move around. Whereas dwellings resembling natural habitats are compact enough so that people can still manage to get a glimpse of their favorite animals.<\/p>\n<p>What&#8217;s more, people who know\u00a0the terms &#8220;black swan&#8221; and &#8220;white tiger&#8221; only as metaphors for rare events will\u00a0be pleasantly surprised to spot these rare animals in flesh and blood at the Mysore zoo\u00a0&#8211; the former waddling around peacefully in a compact pond and the latter roaring around friskily\u00a0in a large cage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I can easily understand Alex Gross&#8217;s complaint with the Seattle zoo where he takes his son in James Patterson&#8217;s novel London Bridges since my family and I have faced similar&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sketharaman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sketharaman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sketharaman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sketharaman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sketharaman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=445"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sketharaman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sketharaman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sketharaman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sketharaman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}