Green Options

What were they thinking?  Two 27-year-old men gained unauthorized access to the Calgary Zoo earlier this week. According to officials, the Canadian men scaled the zoo’s 8-foot perimeter fence, lined with three rows of barbed wire, at about 1:00 A.M. Monday morning. 

As heavily reported elsewhere, a 22-year-old going by “Natalie Dylan” is auctioning off her virginity through the legal Bunny Ranch brothel in Carson City, Nevada. Well, the auction has reached $3.8 million, but one offer seems more peculiar: a zookeeper has offered a live tiger.

This raises quite a few questions: What zoo does this guy work at? Would it be legal to exchange said tiger for sex? How long will it be until PETA takes a position?

“Long ago, when tigers smoked long pipes… ” begin folk tales in South Korea. The stories recall a time at the farthest reaches of living memory when Korean tigers, the world’s largest cats, still prowled the Korean peninsula.

Korea’s national creation myth also tells of a tiger and a bear who asked the son of the ruler of Heaven if he would make them human. He agreed, but only if they could endure 100 days in a cave eating nothing but garlic and mugwort. The steadfast bear endured and became a beautiful woman, who gave birth to Tangun, the legendary father of Korea in 2333 BCE. But the tiger grew hungry and impatient. He left the cave early, unable cope with the hunger and waiting, and has been slinking through the Korean mountains ever since.

That is, until the last century when hunting and habitat loss pushed the Korean tiger over the brink of extinction in the wild in South Korea. With it went an important symbol of Korea’s identity.