Save the bugs from stress!

I wrote earlier this week about feeling out of sync with the world I live in. This Globe and Mail story illustrates exactly what I mean.

VANCOUVER — The lizard lounged, the crickets chirped and the tarantulas perched on fuzzy legs at the edges of a turtle-shaped enclosure, oblivious to their role as stars in a battle of artistic freedom versus animal-welfare concerns.

That was yesterday. As of today, however, the creatures — part of an exhibit called Theatre of the World by renowned Chinese artist Huang Yong Ping — will be gone, removed after the Vancouver Art Gallery decided it could not comply with additional orders from the British Columbia Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals without compromising the artist's work.

The gallery had already made changes to address the agency's concerns about living conditions for reptiles and insects that were part of the exhibit, VAG chief curator Daina Augaitis said yesterday.

But when the B.C. SPCA said the tarantulas and scorpions had to go, the gallery bit back, concluding Saturday that it was unable to accommodate the latest order after consulting with the artist.

As she showed a visitor through the exhibit yesterday, Ms. Augaitis said the order focused on reducing stress for the creatures in the exhibit, a concept she admitted she wrestled with. “Someone's dog gets stressed when their owner goes to work,” Ms. Augaitis said. “To what extent do you go to alleviate stress for a millipede or a toad?”

The mindset of those who think there is a need to alleviate stress for a millipede or a toad is just beyond my ability to comprehend or understand. I must be a deeply flawed creation, as I think the natural environment of bugs and toads to be far harsher and more stressful than the exhibit, and it never occurred to me that there is a need to make their world less harsh or stressful.