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This gives me a chance to bring up my favorite collective noun for a group of animals: a bloat of hippopotami. Although a "dazzle" of zebras comes a second close. One of my favorite quirks of English, don't think other languages have our penchant for giving animal groups special names.

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dudeinjapan

13 days ago

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Japanese has 3 counting particles for animals. The generic one is 匹 "hiki" (ippiki, ni-hiki, san-biki) for dogs, cats, insects, fish, etc. Larger animals like horses and elephants use 頭 "toh" meaning "heads". Birds and rabbits use 羽 "wa" which means "wings." There are various theories why rabbits get counted the same as birds, possibly because rabbit meat tastes like chicken.

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aaco

13 days ago

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Other languages also have this exact same quirk, like Spanish[1] or Portuguese[2].

[1] https://es.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nombre_colectivo [2] https://pt.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substantivo_coletivo

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aspenmayer

13 days ago

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In English, these are called terms of venery:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_noun#Terms_of_vener...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_animal_names

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ConsiderCrying

13 days ago

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Wow, that is fascinating. I will have to use auto-translation but definitely saving these for an evening read, thank you.

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croisillon

13 days ago

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i thought those collective words were (mostly) a recent invention? https://medium.com/@Naturalish/the-absurd-truth-behind-colle...

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ConsiderCrying

13 days ago

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They are, sure, but they're really fun and some of them caught on. I think it's the exact kind of funny little thing we should encourage, language doesn't have to be serious.

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BurningFrog

13 days ago

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Yeah, nobody really uses 95% of those.

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philjohn

13 days ago

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Let's not forget a Murder of Crows.

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gonzo41

13 days ago

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Don't forget a wisdom of wombats.

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xattt

13 days ago

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Tangential, but let’s talk collective nouns of animals. I’ve encountered people who are happy to know what a collective of x, and their amusement about how well the noun fits an animal group.

It seems to be lost on the general population how deliberate word choice ends up being, and how certain people throughout time have tried to make some words happen. Mark Fraunfelder comes to mind around some Internet lingo. Some sticks, some doesn’t.

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gabrielsroka

13 days ago

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https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/missing-zebra-resc...

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latexr

13 days ago

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> Three were quickly captured after being corralled in a pasture. But the fourth — a mare called “Z” — hopped a fence and has proved more elusive

A zebra called “Z”? Sounds like the pilot of a Saturday morning cartoon. The other three were its mentor, its best friend, and its childhood friend love interest called “Ebra”.

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OJFord

13 days ago

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It's also the kind of thing that makes me instinctively read it in American, like 'EZ'. I'm British, I don't say zee or zeebra, but I don't think somebody that says zebra would think to name a zebra Zed.

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cqqxo4zV46cp

13 days ago

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The name’s Ebra. Z Ebra.

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pjmorris

13 days ago

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This off-topic and it isn't your fault, but 'I Zimbra', first song on 'Fear of Music' by the Talking Heads, just popped into my head and it's not going away.

I'm expecting others to come up with the Bond references.

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dvh

13 days ago

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Paint it white and then catch it like a normal horse, duh.

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dudeinjapan

13 days ago

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It would be easier to catch if it wasn’t camouflage.

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scrumper

13 days ago

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Definitely need some specialist help; I'm sure Seattle Zoo has a leopard they could borrow.

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daedalus_j

13 days ago

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Having lived in the area for several decades: there are leopards about already! It's actually kind of impressive that the zebra managed to avoid becoming cougar lunch, it's not like she blends in with the local moss and trees very well...

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cpldcpu

12 days ago

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>Several people stopped to help corral the animals, including a rodeo clown and horse trainers.

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xandrius

13 days ago

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I believe that whenever any animal we, as a society, enslave managed to get away from its enclosure (like a prison break), once recaptured, they are then allowed to live in a specific area/sanctuary for the rest of their life. Be it a zebra, cow or chicken.

I just would love to think that if I happened to be turned into one of those animals, if I still retained part of my intelligence and had a bit of luck, I would be able to free myself from the imprisonment.

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nickburns

13 days ago

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and all the humans were cheaply amused by the animal temporarily breaking free from its own captivity albeit thousands of miles and an ocean away from where it actually belongs.

petting zoos are still a thing? how quaint.

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cmur

13 days ago

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yeah, petting zoos are excellent ways to teach children about animals and animal husbandry. it is very unlucky this has happened, for sure.

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nickburns

13 days ago

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whose children? yours? husbandry of wild animals? huh? what's unlucky for whom? i dunno, man...

might i suggest anything narrated by Sir David Attenborough.

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ChrisMarshallNY

13 days ago

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> anything narrated by Sir David Attenborough

I've come to like Prehistoric Planet[0]. The CGI is so good, you can practically smell the beasties.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prehistoric_Planet

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cmur

13 days ago

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let’s not be intentionally naive here; petting zoos sometimes have exotic animals (like zebras) but mostly contain animals like donkeys, sheep, toy ponies, etc. There are many places to take a stance on animal care and rights, as well as things to criticize involving this incident, but petting zoos are a weird hill to die on regarding this matter. You should consider bringing your children to one soon if you have any, they’re a little smelly (mainly because they’re usually adjacent/close to a farm), but pretty fun, especially if the people running it are educated.

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yencabulator

13 days ago

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For the record, zebras are some of last animals you'd expect to see in a petting zoo. They are actively unfriendly. The San Diego Zoo lets you interact with rhinos and cheetahs more than zebras.

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bilsbie

13 days ago

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It’s weird they need to close trails for a zebra when there are bears, rabid animals, cliffs, falling trees, and all manner of hazards when hiking.

So tired of this nanny attitude.

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Twirrim

13 days ago

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It's not because it's a threat, it was to make it easier to catch the zebra, which has been getting spooked by all these extra people hoping to see it. There's been all sorts of folks out there causing it to panic and run away. They tried asking people not to "help", and it didn't help, so then they closed trails etc.

Talk about things to get tired of, it's people automatically thinking things are nannying, or whatever their specific anti-todays-government thing is, and then being sure to spread what they have decided something is, in their infinite wisdom, without taking even a few minutes to think beyond their immediate bias.

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bilsbie

13 days ago

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Why not target the unhelpful behavior instead of a blanket trail closure for who knows how long.

We all own nature.

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tzs

13 days ago

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The unhelpful behavior is too many people coming out to try to see the zebra which scare it into running away.

How other than closing the trail while they search could they realistically target that behavior? Put checkpoints at all the entrances and only let people in who could prove they had planned their outing before the zebra got loose? Require people to attend a lecture on not scaring the zebra and pass a test showing they understood before they can use the trail?

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Rovoska

13 days ago

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Why are you being so weird about it. You sound exactly like the problem behaviour you describe.

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karaterobot

13 days ago

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According to the extremely short article, the reason is:

> People trying to come out to see the zebra may be spooking it and making it harder to recapture the animal, they said.

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