MacAch!

A wildlife park in the Scottish Highlands was in the news recently when one of its macaques escaped into the surrounding countryside and was at large for six days before being recaptured in someone's garden with the deft use of some left-over Yorkshire Pudding.

This story left me rather despondent and speechless, of which more shortly.

Fortunately, or perhaps not, the same couldn't be said of the internet, which instantly offered up a host of memes, including this prime example shared by the BBC from Facebook.

When it comes to zoos, wildlife parks and natural history museums, I must admit to being rather conflicted. Whilst I understand that educating people about Nature has an important part to play in combating both species and habitat decline, and I know full well that captive breeding programmes and their resulting re-introductions can benefit critically-endangered species, I still have huge reservations about the concept and traditions.

In the case of zoos and parks, it is due to fauna and flora not being in their natural habitat, but (forgive the emotive expression) caged for our entertainment. I don't think this sends the correct message at all, it says that Nature is there for our amusement and retail opportunities and can only exist on our terms. Museums have a wealth of specimens which, yes, are a boon for science and study, but these catalogues of the dead leave me cold, and that's before you contemplate the circumstances which led to the wholesale slaughter of so much wildlife. It leaves a question hanging... if we hadn't killed so many of species X for everybody's collections, would the population of species X be in a healthier position now, and in a much more genetically-diverse condition, the better to evolve in an ever-changing world?

But as awful as all that undoubtedly is, what really left me incredulous about the whole macaque escapade was the left-over Yorkshire Pudding. Left-over?! It's a starter (with gravy), it's part of the main course, and it's a dessert (with golden syrup), how can there be any left-over?! And as if to prove that narrative causality likes to monkey us around, today, in the UK, it is National Yorkshire Pudding Day.

Sadly, my attempts at non-dairy, gluten-free Yorkshires are a pale reflection of the glorious puddings I used to serve up. To be honest, if I'd known there was some going begging in the Highlands, Honshu the Japanese Macaque might have had a bit of competition for the left-overs.