Zoo Lore played a large part in Pi's life and survival living with an untrained adult Bengal tiger at sea alone for 277 days. During part one of the book Pi's father teaches him many lessons on dealing with animals. How they react to certain situations, how to handle them, what most animals in their zoo liked and disliked. But most importantly to be aware of the extreme danger of undomesticated animals. Pi directly applied the knowledge from his early childhood to dealing with Richard Parker. For example lion tamers always go into the ring first before the lion to show dominance over the animal that the lion is in his territory.
Pi's father teaches him the flight distance the minimum distance at which an animal will tolerate a potential predator or enemy. Getting animals used to the presence of humans is the key to the smooth running of a zoo and will be accomplished by creating a good enclosure, providing enough food and water, and knowing each animal well. Taken care of in this way, zoo animals rarely if ever run back to the wild. Although neither Pi or Richard Parker can escape, this helped Pi immensely out at sea with Richard Parker. Pi did his very best to keep his "enclosure" clean, as much food and water as possible and knowing the animal well which after 277 days Pi did know Richard Parker well. This kept Richard Parker from ripping him apart and eating him the first day.
| Someone came a little too close to this kitty. Minimum flight distance |
This is a very poor tiger who is stuck in a small dirty cage surrounded by people very close to him. Even this is very agitating for this poor tiger but to provoke a even bigger reaction a zoo keeper pokes him with a metal stick and aggravates the poor creature. A good example of an un happy animal.
An unhappy animal can be very dangerous just as Pi's father taught him but not just tigers. This is an article where an elephant kills his zoo keeper. A few factors would have cause this elephant to become agitated and strike out. Even docile creatures can become very dangerous if provoked.
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