secretariat – Greg Laden's Blog https://gregladen.com/blog Wed, 23 Mar 2011 19:55:22 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.8 https://i0.wp.com/gregladen.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Greg_Ladens_Blog_Favicon_black_GLb.png?fit=32%2C32&ssl=1 secretariat – Greg Laden's Blog https://gregladen.com/blog 32 32 77525483 If animals wore clothing, we would not have to stuff them. https://gregladen.com/blog/2011/03/23/if-animals-wore-clothing-we-wo/ https://gregladen.com/blog/2011/03/23/if-animals-wore-clothing-we-wo/#comments Wed, 23 Mar 2011 19:55:22 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2011/03/23/if-animals-wore-clothing-we-wo/ Continue reading If animals wore clothing, we would not have to stuff them. →]]> You know that movie that came out a few years ago about the horse that lived during the depression and everybody was happy when it won the triple crown? Well that horse, or a horse just like it (fast, famous, dead) was stuffed and on display in a racing museum I visited when I was a kid, and nearby, was the horse’s jockey, also stuffed.

However, because the jockey was a person and wore clothing (and, in the case of jockeys, they were special colorful outfits that distinguished them from other jockeys) the actual jockey himself was spared the indignity and inconvenience of having his viscera and bones removed from his skin. They just got the clothing and stuffed that, and presumably, the jockey thereafter wore slacks, an oxford shirt and a cardigan of his choice.

The question has now come up: Does the Berlin Zoo stuff Knut, the famous polar bear who died an untimely death in full view of members of the public visiting the zoo? Well, actually, no one at the zoo is asking your opinion. Word on the street is that his body has already been dismantled in a manner pursuant to taxidermy and he will be on display at the Natural History Museum “because there aren’t that many polar bears any longer,” according to the bear’s former keeper.

Now, if Knut had been in the habit of wearing a set of clothing and a hat, perhaps a vest, bow tie, and earmuffs or a watch cap (polar bears can’t wear pants) that were sufficiently distinctive … distinctive like these jockeys’ “colors” …

i-474160975eb82f8b0fa37ab21379c62f-stuffed_jockeys_saratoga.jpg

… then they could just display a nicely dry cleaned and pressed outfit on a bearish manikin and be done with it.

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