I can't get much more of the story myself. I did see it in the news - again, no more info.
Here is the best link I can find so far:
http://www.ntnews.com.au/article/2008/10/03/7301_ntnews.html
It's from the NT news, likely to be the best coverage. There will be more coverage in a few days when the next local Alice paper comes out (I hope).
From the link I found, the kid appears to be Anglo, not Koori. Alice Springs has a mixed population with a certain amount of racial conflict between some members of the community. At the risk of seeming racist, I thought it was likely that the kid at least was middle class because if he belonged to one of the Aboriginal itinerant groups living in the river bed, the zoo director wouldn't have been talking about suing the parents. You can't get blood out of a stone. But then - if it HAD been an Aboriginal kid, the best thing they could do would be to hand him over to the tribal elders.
THEY would administer a swift kick up the arse.
Maybe that's what they should do anyway - involve the local Aboriginal community? There's no reason why a white kid can't be held answerable to the local Aboriginal elders; after all, we hold the Aborigines responsible to white laws. The wanton destruction like this would surely be against a number of the tribal laws.
Suing the parents - I don't think it will achieve one darn thing. The parents will pay up (or not) but what will happen to the kid? Better still, I think, to educate the kid. Enrol him as a zoo volunteer (tightly supervised). There's nothing like shovelling - er, manure, in 40 C heat, to teach a lesson.
Seriously though, sometimes information and education can also involve a kid like this to the point where he has a vested interest in protecting the creatures instead of hurting them. We don't always understand zoos and the purpose they serve. We used to only see zoos as a place of idle amusement, to see freaks of nature close up that otherwise we would never see, since their usual home can be on the other side of the world.
In recent years zoos have been increasingly used as a repository for rare animals, to help them breed and build up numbers with the eventual aim of using zoo-bred numbers to repopulate areas in the wild where they have been made extinct. By learning how to save various species form extinction, we are also learning how to save humanity from extinction.
When you work in a zoo, even as a volunteer, you develop a strong sense of protection to the creatures individually and the zoo in general. Looking at what this kid did - to get into those enclosures required determination and planning. He had a plan which he carried out effectively, given he did a great deal of harm in only 35 minutes. They need to find out why and deal with the "why" and also immediately put in preventive measures (dealing with the "how").
For prevention, they need to educate the local kids as well as their parents, on how a zoo works, why a zoo works and how it is the COMMUNITY's zoo, everybody has benefits from having the zoo in their area.
If I find out more I will share it. I'm horrified. I know difficult child 1 will be too, so will his Aspie mate whose special interest is reptiles.
Marg
