Archives for April 2019

Original Publication Date: 18 April 2013

An undercover investigation by reporters working for The Mammalian Daily has exposed an ugly truth about The Park’s upcoming “job fair.”

According to a report filed by the TMD undercover team, the 2012 Archons signed off on a plan to allow a group of Humans to take over The Park one weekend this Spring for the purpose of recruiting Animals to fill jobs outside The Park.

The job fair, which was aggressively advertised to Park Animals as an opportunity for them to gain better access to gainful employment, is in reality an “adoption event,” according to the results of the reporters’ investigation. Adoption events, which are illegal in The Park, are gatherings organized by Humans for the purpose of capturing Animals and taking them to live in homes outside The Park. These events are associated with enforced domesticity and confinement and, as a result, very few of these captured Animals are ever able to return to their homes and families.

“This is a travesty,” said Dr. Anneliese Cissa, head of the Livingstone School of Economics and Social Science at the University of West Terrier.

In an interview held at her office at the university, Dr. Cissa said the job fair must not be allowed to go on or “all the gains we’ve made as Animals…self-rule and zoocracy…will be undermined.”

“This is exactly the kind of thing that we all knew might happen if we didn’t deal with our sluggish economy in a timely fashion,” she said. “But what we didn’t know was that our own Archons would be the ones to bring us down.”

Dr. Cissa, who is the author of a controversial 2012 report on state of The Park’s economy, was openly critical of the Archons (both 2012 and 2013).

“This is a clear indication that the Archons have been derelict in their duties,” she said.  “It is the responsibility of The Park’s governing body to encourage an atmosphere in which there is adequate opportunity for employment. By transferring their responsibilities to Humans outside The Park, they are doing an injustice to our citizenry. We must take action against this before it is too late,” she said.

The 2013 Archons have thus far made no comment on the job fair.

See also:

Economy forces Animals to work as “domestics” outside Park
Archons, PFO blasted over Human Direct Investment in Park

Original Publication Date: 9 April 2013

With the annual Park Mating Dance less than a month away, it seems that those planning to attend aren’t the only ones who are experiencing a heightened level of anxiety.

So says Balthasar Alouatta, press secretary to the 2013 Archons, who confirmed at a media Q&A this morning that The Park’s 35 leaders are currently sequestered in the Burrow Theatre mulling over the newest set of proposed changes to the Dance’s rules.

“It’s a last-ditch attempt to reach some kind of consensus,” Alouatta said. “They fully understand [the importance] and it is weighing heavily on them. Unless they do [reach an agreement], the Dance will have to be postponed.”

Changes to The Park’s demographics have made amendments to the rules of the Mating Dance necessary, experts say. But, with previous Archons failing to act on that imperative, the responsibility has fallen to this year’s leaders.

After weeks of consultation with health officials and researchers at the University of West Terrier, as well as with The Park’s Departments of Well-Being and Safety and Holidays, Festivals, and Celebrations, Chief Archon Dewi Rhinoceros was confident they had a set of rules that they could approve, Alouatta said.

It soon became apparent, however, that unanimous approval would require further discussion and, possibly, more tweaking.

But since organizers say they require at least two weeks to prepare, only a small amount of time remains before the Dance must be postponed. Alouatta is certain, though, that an agreement is imminent.

“Zoocracy is a messy, time-consuming affair, but I believe that, in the end, the Dance will go ahead as planned,” he said.

Original Publication Date: 29 June 2014

Review: “It Could Happen to You” at the Park Museum June 1-30, 2014

Balls, biscuits, bones. Bowls, boxes, beds. Collars, cages, leashes, toys. The list goes on. And they are all on display until midnight tomorrow at The Park Museum’s month-long exhibit marking Enforced Domestication Awareness Month.

Entitled, “It Could Happen to You,” the exhibit is the first of its kind in The Park and the first ever hosted at the Park Museum.

“We felt it was too important an event to wait for the museum’s completion,” says Sukuta Rhinoceros, as she guides me through the display cases. “We didn’t want to miss the opportunity to highlight this issue.”

One of the museum’s founders and a member of its Board of Governors, Rhinoceros spearheaded the campaign to open part of the main building’s ground floor wing for the exhibit. But come July, the construction workers will be back and if all goes well, the museum will officially open at the end of the year.

We stroll through the space together and as she details the provenance of many of the artefacts, it becomes clear that this is a deeply personal issue for Rhinoceros.

“Enforced domestication isn’t only a problem for small Animals,” she tells me later. “We were overwhelmed after we put out a call for personal items [of domestication] and I wasn’t surprised to find that the majority came from our Canine, Feline, Avian, Piscine, and Reptilian communities. But when some of our other citizens offered traps, harnesses, saddles and the like, our curator said we should put them at the front of the exhibit, so that attendees could see right away that no Animal is out of the sight line of the domesticator.”

The issue of domestication, of course, is much bigger than any museum exhibit can communicate. But “It Could Happen to You” is at its most poignant and effective when it deals with the tools that are used to entice Animals to give up their independence. The sadness and the pain lie in understanding the attraction of those tools. So many of our compatriots have suffered extreme difficulty and it is not hard to imagine succumbing to the promise of a nice meal, a warm bed, and some physical comfort.

If this exhibit accomplishes anything, let that be to remind us that we are responsible for each other and that we must work diligently to make it impossible for our fellow citizens to be tempted away from their lives in The Park.

“It Could Happen to You.”
The Park Museum
June 1-30, 2014 (10:00 a.m.-10:00 p.m daily.; until 11:59 p.m. on June 30)

Original Publication Date: 23 April 2015

At a press conference held this morning, Chief Inspector Maurice Addax of the Park Police’s Specist and Hate Crimes Unit (SHCU) took to the podium to confirm reports of an early morning raid on a Sneak-a-Snuggle that recently opened outside The Park.

Flanked by Inspector Antonia T. Fossa of the Interspecial Investigations Unit (IIU) and C. Astrid H. Ant, Head of The Park’s Ant Security and Intelligence Service (ASIS), Inspector Addax revealed details of the raid, in which more than one hundred Animals were liberated.

“Under cover of darkness, members of the ASIS Select Undercover Brigade (SUB) were deployed in a covert action that involved infiltrating the Sneak-a-Snuggle and liberating the Animals held therein,” he said.

The crack team of more than a thousand received assistance from other members of the police force in the execution of the raid, Inspector Addax told reporters.

“All went as planned. The operation went smoothly and we do not anticipate having to return to that location,” he said.

The Animals who were liberated come from “a variety of different species” and, Addax told reporters, they will be spending a few days at the Park Hospital for the Afflicted and Infirm before they are released and able to function on their own.

“They will receive counselling from a number of The Park’s refugee and immigrant aid groups and they are welcome to establish a life here, should they so desire,” he said.