Remember the Pittsburgh Zoo example of retarded parenting?

nocones wrote: To be fair this is the Railing the boy fell off of. Does this look to be of a design sufficent to prevent human intrusion to the cage?

Looks good enough to me. How the heck do you fall in from that? Was the chicken wire added later?

http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/local/neighborhoods-city/da-updates-investigation-of-todder-death-at-zoo-663989/ said: Witnesses to the mauling of a 2-year-old at the Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium earlier this month told investigators that it appeared the little boy thought there was Plexiglas in front of him at the African painted dog exhibit when he lunged forward with his hands to the sides of his face as if to peer through it. Instead, Maddox Derkosh toppled over the railing.

So if he lunged forward was there something there? The mesh I assume? If the mesh gave way then its a whole other situation.

There is no mesh in the middle. Honestly after seeing the enclosure and the fact that they removed it completely makes me think the zoo is boned in this. Clearly they felt mesh was required but not on that 1 panel. The net was obviously not of suficient size to catch someone falling and they removed the entire platform after the incident basically admitting it was faulty.. at least time sure her lawyer and jurors will see it that way.

Also there is a picture of someone at the railing making it appear to be 30" or less in height.

wvumtnbkr wrote: Why does this have to be in Pittsburgh? What an idiot.

Because Florida has met their quota for the year?

I think the kid was sitting on the railing above the mesh

http://onlineathens.com/national-news/2012-11-05/pa-zoo-wild-dogs-killed-boy-who-fell-exhibit

Visitors view the zoo's dogs from a wooden deck that's enclosed except for the front, where the roughly 4-foot-high wooden railing is located. [.....] Baker said zoo officials "discourage" parents from setting their children on the wide, wooden railing, which slopes toward the viewing platform at a 45-degree angle so a child placed there would be more likely to fall backward into a parent's arms than forward into the exhibit.

Bobzilla wrote:

Swank Force One wrote: Darwin/survival of the fittest. Make it so. I'm all for making the cages just barely tall enough for the animals to not be able to get out. But make it EXTREMELY easy for people to get in.

a "one-way" door. You can walk in, but you can't get out. If you're that f-n stupid, you deserve to be food. Personally, I'm tired of breeding the stupid, the weak and hte lazy.

A buddy of mine proposed this test: at age 13, each child is brought to a closed room. Inside, there is a generic adult of the same gender as the child. The adult gives the child a plastic bag and a roll of duct tape, then calmly directs the child to put the bag over his/her head and tape the neck shut.

If the child is dumb / unimaginative / subjugated enough to actually do it... oh, well.

Duke wrote:

Bobzilla wrote:

Swank Force One wrote: Darwin/survival of the fittest. Make it so. I'm all for making the cages just barely tall enough for the animals to not be able to get out. But make it EXTREMELY easy for people to get in.

a "one-way" door. You can walk in, but you can't get out. If you're that f-n stupid, you deserve to be food. Personally, I'm tired of breeding the stupid, the weak and hte lazy.

A buddy of mine proposed this test: at age 13, each child is brought to a closed room. Inside, there is a generic adult of the same gender as the child. The adult gives the child a plastic bag and a roll of duct tape, then calmly directs the child to put the bag over his/her head and tape the neck shut. If the child is dumb / unimaginative / subjugated enough to actually *do* it... oh, well.

Damn that's so witty!! 1 Internet's to you

So putting your child on an unprotected railing that was out of his own reach is "good parenting"? Wow.... some of y;all have some really low expectations. Apparently Idiocracy isn't going to take 500 years to create. We're doing it in 10.

nocones wrote: There is no mesh in the middle. Honestly after seeing the enclosure and the fact that they removed it completely makes me think the zoo is boned in this. Clearly they felt mesh was required but not on that 1 panel. The net was obviously not of suficient size to catch someone falling and they removed the entire platform after the incident basically admitting it was faulty.. at least time sure her lawyer and jurors will see it that way.

In that case she couldn't have had him securely if he was able to lunge forward, my guess is she let him stand there, leaning back onto her while she didn't have a hold on him. If that is the case, I can't back her up.

Honestly though, why the berk wasn't there mesh on the front? The zoo knew people set their kids up there anyway, it was only a matter of time until one fell in.

moparman76_69 wrote: Honestly though, why the berk wasn't there mesh on the front? The zoo knew people set their kids up there anyway, it was only a matter of time until one fell in.

That's why there was a 45 degree backwards angle to the railing. That's also why there was a safety/catch net below the railing.

FWIW, I've heard two sides to this.....media reports say that some staff at the zoo expressed concern before the incident occurred. OTOH, my friend who lives there was surprised that a kid could fall far enough away to pass the net.

JoeyM wrote: That's why there was a 45 degree backwards angle to the railing. That's also why there was a safety/catch net below the railing.

Hence why I said the kid was probably leaning against the mom to keep from falling backwards.

Curmudgeon wrote: IIRC I'm one of those heartless bastards who saw this coming too. I has no surprise. There is also a lawsuit out there where some idiot was drinking beer in a National Forest, passed out in his sleeping bag and woke up at about 2AM needing to drain the lizard so he went stumbling through the woods. Our hero proceeded to fall down a 10 foot embankment and break his leg. And of course he sued the Forest Service for not putting up a rail.

I wonder if he wouldn't have sued if he didn't suddenly find himself with a 5-figure medical bill, plus possibly an expensive medevac bill as well...

After being on the crappy end of some of these frivolous lawsuits, I've learned one important thing. Not only will insurance companies sue for stupid crap on your behalf in order to possibly get out of paying out themselves, they will do it even if you are against the idea.

moparman76_69 wrote:

JoeyM wrote: That's why there was a 45 degree backwards angle to the railing. That's also why there was a safety/catch net below the railing.

Hence why I said the kid was probably leaning against the mom to keep from falling backwards.

Yeah, I saw that you said that. I should have made it clear that I was not doubting your explanation. The only reason I had posted was to remind people of the net

JoeyM wrote: I'd just like to point out that my friend up there goes to that zoo fairly often. He says these are not fully grown dogs....they are not much bigger than my hound gertrude How does a parent not jump into the pit and start kicking some dogs in an effort to save their kid?

Because anyone stupid enough to jump down there and start kicking a pack of these would just end up mauled to death as well?

moparman76_69 wrote:

nocones wrote: There is no mesh in the middle. Honestly after seeing the enclosure and the fact that they removed it completely makes me think the zoo is boned in this. Clearly they felt mesh was required but not on that 1 panel. The net was obviously not of suficient size to catch someone falling and they removed the entire platform after the incident basically admitting it was faulty.. at least time sure her lawyer and jurors will see it that way.

In that case she couldn't have had him securely if he was able to lunge forward, my guess is she let him stand there, leaning back onto her while she didn't have a hold on him. If that is the case, I can't back her up. Honestly though, why the berk wasn't there mesh on the front? The zoo knew people set their kids up there anyway, it was only a matter of time until one fell in.

So that you wouldn't have to look through mesh at the animals?

It seems pretty reasonable to me.

z31maniac wrote:

moparman76_69 wrote:

nocones wrote: There is no mesh in the middle. Honestly after seeing the enclosure and the fact that they removed it completely makes me think the zoo is boned in this. Clearly they felt mesh was required but not on that 1 panel. The net was obviously not of suficient size to catch someone falling and they removed the entire platform after the incident basically admitting it was faulty.. at least time sure her lawyer and jurors will see it that way.

In that case she couldn't have had him securely if he was able to lunge forward, my guess is she let him stand there, leaning back onto her while she didn't have a hold on him. If that is the case, I can't back her up. Honestly though, why the berk wasn't there mesh on the front? The zoo knew people set their kids up there anyway, it was only a matter of time until one fell in.

So that you wouldn't have to look through mesh at the animals? It seems pretty reasonable to me.

Seems to work everywhere else...

The zoo said they discourged parents but did not post signs so they knew there was a problem.......the mother tried to jump down to the pit but she was restrained by other people........the net you see below railing was designed to catch litter not people. The child bounced out off it. I have stood there and looked at the dogs before and watched many parents do this. It should of been a nice glass enclosure period.

I'm not saying the parent isn't faultless. I'm definately not saying she should get paid for what happened. I'm sure some greedy lawyer got her to "wise up" to the fact that the only thing that can replace her child is lots of cash . I do think the zoo could have built a better enclosure though, and agree with the fact that them tearing it down quickly after the accident doesn't help their case.

My wife and I recently went to the Woodley Park Zoo in DC. It's pretty much tourist season already. With that being said our conclusion was that the people visiting the zoo were the ones who should have been caged and on exhibit. They were more entertaining than the animals whom I always feel bad for (I have a soft spot, and the gorillas that eat their own poo then puke it up and eat it again - breaks me heart). We enjoy walking around in that part of town and the zoo is free so we decided to stroll in and boy we got a treat.

Knurled wrote:

Curmudgeon wrote: IIRC I'm one of those heartless bastards who saw this coming too. I has no surprise. There is also a lawsuit out there where some idiot was drinking beer in a National Forest, passed out in his sleeping bag and woke up at about 2AM needing to drain the lizard so he went stumbling through the woods. Our hero proceeded to fall down a 10 foot embankment and break his leg. And of course he sued the Forest Service for not putting up a rail.

I wonder if he wouldn't have sued if he didn't suddenly find himself with a 5-figure medical bill, plus possibly an expensive medevac bill as well... After being on the crappy end of some of these frivolous lawsuits, I've learned one important thing. Not only will insurance companies sue for stupid crap on your behalf in order to possibly get out of paying out themselves, they will do it even if you are against the idea.

If you read your medical insurance policy you'll get to a part called 'subrogation'. In this part you discover that you are to participate in the insurance company suing someone else to recover their costs if they think that 3rd party is responsible. BCBS tried that one on me a few years ago. Needless to say it did not work out well for them (and that lawsuit would have been agains the Forest Service as well). I was threatened with the loss of my medical benefits if I did not go along. It being that the FS in no way contributed to the injury etc there was no need to sue them.

When BCBS threatened to cut off my benefits I threatened to sue them instead, suddenly the whole thing was dropped. I guess drunk boy knuckled under, maybe he saw dollar signs. No matter what, he's ultimately responsible for his own safety in the wilds but he chose to push it off on someone else. Yay, America.

Back to the original point of this thread (and this is not directed at you): there is NO perfect enclosure. None. Zip. Zilch. ANY of them can be defeated through stupidity.

Michael Jackson caught hell in the press for hanging his kid out of a hotel window in Germany. I suppose that enclosure was poorly designed as well.

But this woman can make as bad a mistake, her kid dies and she sues? I'm not buying it.

DirtyBird222 wrote: My wife and I recently went to the Woodley Park Zoo in DC. It's pretty much tourist season already. With that being said our conclusion was that the people visiting the zoo were the ones who should have been caged and on exhibit. They were more entertaining than the animals whom I always feel bad for (I have a soft spot, and the gorillas that eat their own poo then puke it up and eat it again - breaks me heart). We enjoy walking around in that part of town and the zoo is free so we decided to stroll in and boy we got a treat.

Are you sure they're eating their own poo? Quite often animals whose immune system is weak, such as the very young or ill, will eat others droppings to re-establish the flora in their digestive tract. Baby horses do it, and if they haven't gotten the first milk, containing colostrum, the vet will actually feed them a "manure tea". Interesting fact- was just reading recently that they've started to do "fecal transplants" in humans for the same reason.

Yah, I hear you on the type of people you see around the zoo. berkeleying waaaay dumber than any of the poor bastards in the cages. I make no secret of the fact that I think the situation should be reversed - breaks my heart whenever I see things like "Tan Mom" or the Kardashians, and think "for this we're losing species?".

Lesley wrote: they've started to do "fecal transplants" in humans for the same reason.

Bah--let's just childproof the entire berkeleying planet and give each kid a trophy for making it through each day.

Yup, some critters eat their own poop. It is especially common in hindgut fermenters who break their food down in the caecum (i.e. after the small intestine, where most nutrient absorption occurs.)
video explaining why rabbits eat their own poop
video of rabbit eating own poop

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