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.
I’m dubious. Mom dies suddenly, then baby dies suddenly after choking on it’s own vomit. Yeah, no, let’s blame the fireworks. Surely, nothing else could be the cause of Red Panda deaths at this zoo.
I had a whole thing earlier but was mistaken, the baby was 3 months old not a newborn. Either way, I still don’t doubt that fireworks could easily stress out a very young animal and be the tipping point of their health.
I’m not sure what could motivate them to make a grand conspiracy against fireworks, rather than the more likely result of them being exhausted and frustrated caretakers who, like any pet owner, probably spent that evening trying to calm the panda down only to watch it panic until it died. Stress vomiting isn’t really rare for animals on the 4th of July. It’s just the extreme end of stress.
I’m not saying that it’s a conspiracy against fireworks, but possibly a problem with the habitat, food, or something else that would cause big issues for the zoo if discovered. The fireworks were convenient. I have zero evidence for this other than the fact that a lot of zoos are complete cesspools, and so I typically don’t trust “suddenly died” followed three days later by another “suddenly died” regardless of how many fireworks were launched off.
Also, there is this line:
Roxie had access to her den but the frightening noises seem to have been too much for her.
Seems like the zoo just left a weak animal to suffer instead of taking precautions to assure that the panda was placed in a safe location. It makes me doubt that anyone was even there, and that the zookeepers returned the following day to a dead red panda and tried to cover it up.
That’s fair, I definitely jumped to the “they wanna take away fireworks” conspiracy on my end, too much arguing on the Internet for me this week >.<
I do hope they look into it. I just know how freaked out my pets have been in the past, inconsolable at times, so the fireworks being a real factor wouldn’t surprise me. I’d hope they would have meds to help calm the animals, but I wonder if they were too young for them, or had a dosage issue.
Whether or not it was the direct cause in this case, fireworks cause a lot of animals a lot of stress and deaths do come from it.
I don’t see why anyone needs to be able to buy explosives to use at home, firework shows should be organised in set locations and should use low noise fireworks as much as possible.
Maybe they should have called some vet experts to investigate. Oh wait that is exactly what they did but I am sure people on the internets know more about animals. Not a big fan of zoos but people who armchair are magnitudes worse.
And no medical professional has ever been found to be biased in their opinion. And no reporter ever misrepresented what someone said to make a more sensational article. Stress is not a well understood thing. There is no test for confirming the source of stress. And the vets aren’t saying their is. Did the fireworks contribute, sure I would trust a vet who says that, and it was probably what they actually said. But a babies Mom dieing, and not being there to comfort the baby from the stress of fireworks is probably a bigger contributor. Also read a little further down where the expert says we can’t rule out fireworks as the cause. That is totally different. Seems like the vets don’t agree.
right and random strangers on the internet are completely unbiased and generally reasonable? It does not give one enough reason to completely disregard experts’opinions. vets are saying that it probably is a contributing factor whereas people in this thread are claiming that it is the zoo who is trying to cover up for bad conditions and negligence in the zoo. tell me which one sounds more reasonable?
They didn’t call in an outside vet to investigate. The fucking zoo keepers are vets. The zoo keepers are telling you what happened. You can believe them or not, but it’s not accountability.
Check under the vet team here:
https://www.rzss.org.uk/conservation/meet-the-team
Professors, veterinary surgeons, veterinary nurses etc. Edinburgh zoo is not just your run of the mill local village zoo. So sorry buddy, I am sure you will understand if I still trust the word of these people on the matter and not you, a random person with distaste against zoos (not a big fan either to be honest). I mean this is not just any field as well, this is zoology. People usually get into it because they love animals and such. It is not completely impossible for someone in this field to lie to cover up but now it is just your personal distaste against zoos and human kind vs several very well trained people on the field… As I said, I am not a big fan of zoos either and somewhat undecided about conservatories (which is what “Edinburgh Zoo” actually is) but that does not make people working there terrible lying scum bags.
