Six Flags Feeds Kids Live Cockroaches

In Eat a Cockroach, Cut to Front of Line (AP, 09/22/06), we learn that at Six Flags Great America, in Gurnee, Illinois, from October 7-29, children can cut lines at the park if they eat a live Madagascar hissing cockroach. And a spokesman for the park, James Taylor, is "hoping someone can beat the 2001 Guiness Book of World Records feat in which a British man downed 36 cockroaches."

Lake County Health Department’s health director, Bill Mays, said, "Consuming live roaches might increase risks of gastrointenstinal allergies."

For whom? Oh, right, the consumer of the cockroach.

But what about the cockroaches, who are 2-3 inches long? Does anybody care about them? And what about the lesson this inane marketing stunt teaches children? Rules can be broken with outrageous stunts involving killing critters by way of crushing them with your teeth and jaws and burning through their bodies with your digestive enzymes.

The other important lesson children are being taught is that nonhuman life is meaningless. The cockroaches are merely props. They have no significance of any kind and exist purely for the entertainment of humans, and there is not a moment’s thought to whether there is an ethical issue.

Let Six Flags know that children don’t need any more examples of how to disrespect nature. And they certainly don’t need to be desensitized to the suffering of nonhuman life by ingesting it while it’s still alive.

Six Flags Great America
542 N Route 21
Gurnee, IL 60031
Hank Salemi, General Manager
Park Information (847) 249-INFO (4636)
Guest Relations   (847) 249-1776 x4625