Good Eats at Zoo

BROOKFIELD, IL – Dusti the giraffe is dead.

In a sad but true story, the eleven year fixture of the Chicago Zoological Park located in Brookfield, Illinois, somehow hanged himself in the ropes and rigging used to suspend baskets of food at mouth-height inside his enclosure.

Perhaps more troubling than the leggy creature’s demise, however, is the reaction of zoo staff to this unfortunate event.

My initial thoughts upon hearing this tragic news were, “Do you think it was a suicide?” and then, “Wonder what they’ll do with the meat?”

In his article, “Giraffe Recipes Reshelved Over Lack of Ingredients,” Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass posed just such a question to horrified zoo employees who expressed outrage at what they considered an impertinent – nay, sacrilegious question – as if John had suggested they were all baby-stealing, cat-torturing gypsies.

I don’t get it. If 3,000 pounds of choice meat fell out of the sky onto my dinner table, I’d mutter a quick prayer of thanks, then fire up the grill.

Say, for instance, a prize Angus steer wandered into your yard and died of a heart attack (no doubt from eating too much red meat). The last thing I would be inclined to do is tie it to my lawn tractor and drag it to the curb for garbage day. Angus beef? That’s good eatin’. And while
I don’t know whether giraffe meat is fit for the human palate, I must imagine any of the zoo’s many carnivores would find its tasty goodness reminiscent of home on the range.

Yet the zoo, a not-for-profit institution which relies heavily on charitable contributions, public patronage, and sales of $4.00 boxes of popcorn, to support its research, sought fit to cremate Dusti rather than do him the dishonor of returning him to “the circle of life” (quoting a bit of Disney dime-store philosophy), thereby reducing his existence to nothing more than fertilizer for next summer’s butterfly garden.

Shame on you, Brookfield Zoo! Since when did zoo animals become pets? And why is it suddenly more about the feelings of the milk-toast, overly sentimental zoo staff than the enrichment of the zoo’s paying customers? Last I checked, the zoo was a place where local folk could come to experience glimpses of life in other parts of the world – to learn about exotic creatures and distant habitats – without ever leaving the quaint confines of Cook County. Take away the patrons, and what is a zoo but Riker’s Island for animals?

Yet here we are, crying alongside the poor zoo workers whose pet giraffe just died. Never mind that Dusti could have fed all of the zoo’s meat eaters for at least one day, thereby ensuring he didn’t die stupidly and without purpose.

Somebody needs to consider the welfare of the animals. You think the animals – especially the big predators – want to lie around all day in a tiny enclosure waiting for someone to toss them a chunk of horse meat? Hell no! They want to roam, hunt, mate – all those things animals do when their kids aren’t watching.

I offer proof of this claim by way of an anecdote from my own experience. Before we had kids, my wife and I lived in Brookfield. Owing to convenience, we used to visit the zoo regularly. One fall day we were standing at the viewing window outside the lion enclosure watching a male lion sleeping against the glass. Just then, a slight, three or four year old girl walked up with her mother and pushed her way to the front. Realizing a one inch tempered pane was all that separated her from the king of beasts, she retreated to her mother’s leg.

“Does he bite, Mommy?” she asked.

A zoo veteran, wise in the ways of all deadly creatures, I interjected, in my most avuncular, condescending, know-it-all manner, that the animal had been in captivity so long, it was probably tame as a house cat.

No sooner had the words left my pursed lips when a Canada Goose perched high on the enclosure’s rocky back wall, made an ill-conceived decision to glide down from its safe roost into the center of the enclosure where lay a chunk of soft pretzel tossed by a misinformed onlooker who believed he was at the seagull exhibit.

Before the foundering foul’s second foot lit upon the ground, the comatose lion had sprung to life, closed the twenty or so feet between the window and the center of the enclosure in a single bound, and swiped the landing bird from the air, and dragged its now limp form into his cave.

As the folks on the open side of the enclosure cheered the gander’s demise with rousing applause, I looked down at the terrified little girl and said, “Don’t believe everything grownups tell you.”

Though shocking, I was intrigued by the spectacle.

It seems we’ve become a society of special- interest-touting activists. Animal rights. Children’s rights. Convicted criminal’s rights. Vegetable’s rights. You can hardly do anything nowadays without offending someone, somewhere.

That being said, would it be so bad to add a little circus to the zoo? For example, what would be the harm in turning a few tigers loose in the Okapi enclosure, or a boa in the rodent house, or a perhaps a snow leopard in the Children’s Zoo?

Given the popularity of television programs like Wild Discovery, where on any given night you can see a cheetah take down and devour an Ibex in all its gore, I have to believe people would flock to see the same sort of thing live, up-close, and in person.

The US has already been accused of following in the footsteps of the Roman Empire. Why not embrace our destiny and have a little fun in the process? Not only would we be providing an enriching, affirming experience for the animals, but think of all the $4.00 boxes of popcorn they’d sell!

Animals will be animals. It’s not their fault (or ours) they taste good.


© 2008 Mark J. Layne/Layne-Duck Productions, Ltd.