Fear of the Animal Planet by Jason Hribal

[Simon]

I just found out about this interesting book the other day: Fear of the Animal Planet - The Hidden History of Animal Resistance

"A Siberian tiger at the San Francisco Zoo leaps a 12-foot high wall and mauls three visitors who had been tormenting her, killing one. A circus elephant tramples and gores a sadistic trainer, who had repeatedly fed her lit cigarettes. A pair of orangutans at the San Diego Zoo steal a crowbar and screwdriver and break-out of their enclosure. An orca at Sea World snatches his trainer into the pool and holds her underwater until she drowns. What's going on here? Are these mere accidents? Simply cases of animals acting on instinct? That's what the zoos and animal theme parks would have you believe. But historian Jason Hribal tells a different story. In the most provocative book on animal rights since Peter Singer's Animal Liberation, Hribal argues persuasively that these escapes and attacks are deliberate, that the animals are acting with intent, that they are asserting their own desires for freedom. Fear of the Animal Planet is a harrowing, and curiously uplifting, chronicle of resistance against the captivity and torture of animals."

​I have added it to my wish-list and hopefully I'll be able to read it soon.

[Crash-Cheetah]

Makes sense. Animals are not dumb. They do think about what is going on and if you have any pets than you know that they learn words mean.

[zararina]

I could agree that they could act for their freedom and they could fight back against torture and maltreatment.They have the ability to think somehow like how to hunt for food and recognize the people who take care of them. Living things will really want to be free and cared correctly.

[Crash-Cheetah]

I don't think that instinct is really what people think. Animals have proven to go against it time and time again.