Teasing the Monkeys

I read a quote from Ghandi of India: "You learn a lot about a person by the way he treats animals."

Today we visited the birdpark; a mini-zoo with a few animals and more birds. One new cage is for 2 small Barbary monkeys. The railing and cage is close to the path such that people poke sticks, their fingers in the cage and offer popcorn, plastic bags and other junk to them. Worst, is the teasing. Not surprisingly, young males delight in teasing the monkeys. But we see whole families, fathers, mothers and little children.

At one point, after being teased, the monkeys jumped and splashed dirty water on the humans. We watched from a distance, turning to each other and smiling, "Serves them right."

While all this animal abuse goes on, we wonder, "Where are the park staff?" Nowhere. They aren't to be seen. It appears that no one who works at the park cares what happens.

So much for the monkeys.