Educate her? She knows!

I refer to the letter on the Straits Times Forum Online posted below:

Feeding wildlife: Educate uninformed adults

I APPLAUD recent measures to punish those who feed wildlife in public parks.
I was at the Singapore Zoo last Friday with my young son and came upon a girl, perhaps no more than 10 years old, feeding twigs to the goats at Children's World, the children's section of the zoo.

Next to her was her mother and a prominent sign that reads 'No feeding'.

I gently reminded the woman of the notice board. Her retort? 'Everybody feeds the animals'.

Her child continued to feed the goat, which was lapping up whatever she was picking up from the ground. This clueless child will unfortunately grow up thinking her behaviour is perfectly acceptable.

The innocent child was not at fault. The parent, an educated adult, should have known better.

What more can be done when harsh penalties have been meted out on obstinate offenders?

More aggressive education is key, perhaps to both school-going children and misguided, uninformed adults.

Koh Wee Hoon (Ms)


I think Ms Koh is too kind. First of all, if you are a Singapore student of age 10 and cannot read and understand "No Feeding", then something is seriously wrong. Secondly, if everyone was doing something, it doesn't mean that it's the right thing.
Third, where were the zookeepers? Fourth, why didn't more people point her out? This reminds me of something Martin Luther King Junior once said, "We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the vitriolic words and actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good people". The world is going to pot, precisely because of this.

Does the zoo have some kind of punishment for these? Feeding animals where you aren't allowed to feed them, and running the risk of feeding the wrong things to them should be dealt with as the equivalent of animal abuse (and if you ask me, the penalties for animal abuse isn't quite severe enough). Parents who blatantly ignore the signs should be fined on the spot. Children who see their parents ignore the rules and laws may grow up to believe that either their parents are above the law, or that some laws can be violated. Cutting their parents down to size would go along way to enforcing to children that the signs cannot be ignored.