Monday, February 27, 2012

Animals finding our weak spots


Usually I wait till I've got three examples before declaring something a trend. But when I read this story about a moose getting into a hospital in Alaska, I knew it couldn't wait.

Although Anchorage is a big city, they seem rather blase about these large ungulates, judging from the way the hospital's spokeperson tried to downplay the incident. While the animal actually getting inside the building was a first, she said, they often get into the parking garage. And while the news reported that the moose "quickly garnered its own private security force akin to a presidential Secret Service detail," the spokeperson insisted that "the moose was never a nuisance."

But what should concern the rest of us most is the moose's method of entry: that first photo up top should be the clue. It got in via the automatic doors, bringing to mind an incident we reported on this past summer. At a hospital in India, monkeys have learned to get in via the automatic doors:
They have terrorised patients, stealing food, playing with medical equipment, and attacking staff.

Not only have these animals discovered that our technology provides a weak spot in the form of these automatic doors, in both cases, they've targeted hospitals, containing the weakest among us.

How long before more animals realize they can open these doors? And perhaps we should consider: If we're too lazy to open our own doors, maybe we deserve what we get?

2 comments:

  1. >If we're too lazy to open our own doors, maybe >we deserve what we get?
    But these are hospital doors. A significant portion of the human beings using them are ill and/or injured,or burdened with equipment. Sometimes seconds struggling with a door can make a huge difference in patient outcome.
    Let's keep the blame for this where it belongs - the moose and monkeys !

    ReplyDelete
  2. Think of the unemployment rate. Why not employ people to open those hospital doors, who can tell the difference between humans and moose?

    ReplyDelete

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