The depression of Roger the Koala bear

On the outskirts of Sydney, Australia, lies the Flora and Fauna Conservation Institute. Founded in the 1970s, it hosts a few dozen koalas, kangaroos, wallabies and such endemic species. Open to the public a few years after its opening, the Institute quickly became a must-see, a sort of scientific zoo, an educational place where families (tourists or locals) could learn about how Australian animals and plants live together.

Roger, the koala bear, was made famous there a few years back when he began eating other leaves than traditional Eucalyptus. The staff started wondering what made him eat different food, why he wouldn't do like his mates. They didn't have an answer but the fact was there: Roger ate anything, from fruits to roots, grass and bush twigs. Visitors would take him in their arms, hug him, hold him down to their kids who would play with him like they would with a furry teddy bear. He grew tired of all this, got enough of all this attention and constant human contact. People started to notice this and got disinterested. He looked for a way out but there was none. He was trapped in there for good, bound to eat crappy food for the rest of his marsupial life. A koala bear with a sad face, what a vision! Even kids would sympathize and try to play with him, to make him happy again. But to no good, he fell into a great depression, like Ali when he lost that fight to Frazier, like an obese that's cut off his favourite McDonald's... Roger died alone in his cage a few months later, aged twelve, with no no one to care for him, not a soul to nurse his old days. Funny thing, at the end his stomach couldn't digest anything else than eucalyptus and he went back to his natural diet.

The depression of Roger the koala bear should raise questions and controversy, why is it that man always want to put in display unusual characters like white tigers, black panthers, fruit-eating koalas, two-headed snakes. It's like back in the Middle Ages when black people where exposed like trophy animals. Sad times our times.