I learned something new yesterday

The kids and I went to the Junior Museum. (Or the Florida Museum of Science & Natural History, or whatever the hell they changed the name to that I can never remember.) It was the best time to go - drizzly, so it was cooler - no people, and almost all the animals were out.

We were coming down the walkway to the Florida Panther enclosure and I heard the most god-awful howling and hissing and growling, I thought "holy shit, are they fighting?" Came around the corner and - um, oops. Those two panthers are a male and a female, yup. From those noises it was hard to tell if she was enjoying it or suffering it. I asked one of the workers later if their panthers were able to have babies - she said no, he'd been vasectomized. (It didn't occur to me until later when mom asked - why on earth would you want an endangered species animal vasectomized? Wouldn't you want them to have as many babies as possible? Maybe they're siblings.)