American Bison

There has been much ado about the demise of two American bison, who were euthanized by their keepers at ZooAmerica outside of Hershey Park in Hershey Pennsylvania when the bison were trapped in their pen by rapidly rising flood waters. The Sophie's choice that keepers faced was to watch the bison drown or humanely destroy them. They chose the later.

"Unfortunately, no one could anticipate a weather event that went from inches of rain to feet of flooding in a matter of a few short minutes," the Zoo said in a statement. "Faced with the prospect of watching the extended suffering of the bison and their eventual death due to drowning, the zoo staff chose the most humane path possible and euthanized the bison."

It is truly a most unfortunate and tragic incident. It is most definitely true that the waters did rise rapidly but it is also true that somehow the keepers did manage to get all the other animals out of their confines and to higher ground. "We had a plan and we put it in effect, but the circumstances were beyond anything that we had ever seen," said Mindy Bianca, public relations director for Hershey Entertainment and Resorts Co, the parent company of the zoo.

I have another take entirely. Why were bison, who should be roaming free on the range (just ask Ted Turner), in a zoo to begin with? Those great symbols of the American West deserve to live out their days in the wild not in cages or pens of any type.