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[AugustWest]

I heard a story on NPR this evening about the director of the National Zoo resigning.  Isn't this where you work?

Sounded like there are some pretty serious problems there, especially with sanitation.  They kept talking about rats.  Willard rats, not mole rats.

Anyhow, I was concerned for you when I heard the story.  Are you safe from the rats?  Is your job safe?

[CortJstr]

That's been in the news for a while. It pops up on the front page of the Post from time to time. It doesn't sound like the regular employees will be effected, it all sounds like more a top brass thing.

[wombat]

The Post today is gloating about driving her from office.  There's a huge picture of her at the top of the front page. I think she needed to go, but I think the paper has behaved quite offensively.  I get the feeling there are reporters who are trying to prove their worthiness for muckraking on more important beats.

It is a long complicated story.  A lot of the problems they talk about are really in the past.  Things are not perfect here but it's nothing like how they make it sound.  And it's frustrating that there's never any context - how it compares to other zoos, which as far as I know, are typically just as understaffed and underfunded as we are.

A lot of the problems are typical of any large bureaucracy.  But the thing is, while in any job people make mistakes and any organization can have problems, mistakes here can cause things to die.  It's not like my last job where the worst mistake I could make could always be righted by a signature on a piece of paper.  So some scrutiny is valid.  Unfortunately, it has felt like a witch hunt.  It makes it hard for people to take action to solve the problems when they are afraid every second that they're going to have their name in the paper.

I am pretty safe from rats - mostly just mice in our building, and fewer than there used to be. My job isn't safe because I'm still only a temp, but that has nothing to do with this shakeup, that's a whole other story.

[wombat]

May I rant about one more thing?

There's a typical kind of line in that NPR report that I just listened to: something like "many animals have died at the zoo in the past year."

Well, DUH.  People: Remember when you were a kid and you had that old dog, and one day you came home and he was gone, and your parents said that they'd taken him to live on a farm in the country?  Well, I have some bad news for you...

Animals don't live forever.  Of COURSE a zoo with hundreds of animals is going to have animals dying all the time.  Mostly dying of old age, after they've lived much longer than they'd ever live in wild, because at the zoo they have a consistent food supply, and vet care, and no one trying to eat them.  For every the animal they talk about who has died somewhat prematurely, I could introduce you to another animal that's way outlived its species' average life span.

[CortJstr]

Hey, the Baltimore zoo almost had to close early this year. But I think people expect your zoo to be perfect because it has things like "National" and "Smithsonian" attached to its name.

I can't believe that between the Metro thefts and Lewis's indictment that the zoo got the main spot.

[Carlos del Vaca]

You know my big beef with the Zoo, which I think Spellman had a lot to do with?  Too many freakin' expansions and renovations at once.  The past few times I've been in, the zoo looks like CRAP because there's too much construction and tearin' shit up going on.  FoNZ members are constantly being beseiged with pleas for extra donations to fix the small mammal house, to redo the buffalo exhibit, for the Polish-American heritage garden, for the damn farm/petting zoo that still isn't done, for this that and the other damn thing.  YEARS ago I sprang for a tile with my name on it at the new panda house, and WHERE'S MY fuck*ng TILE?!?  For that matter, WHERE'S THE NEW fuck*ng PANDA HOUSE?!!!  I don't even know where they're putting that mofo.

Ahem.  I don't doubt that stuff needs to be updated and replaced, but it would be better both aesthetically and from a budgeting perspective to pick one or two projects, get them freaking done, then take on more projects.

[wombat]

I agree.  And what you're seeing doesn't even include the whole "Tear up Olmsted's park and build Lucy's Asia Trail" project that only exists as blueprints and models at this point.

But don't even get me started on pandas.

[CortJstr]

I can't believe that because the Party Animals project was so "successful" they're doing it again with pandas. Who has these ideas?

I seem to recall several news stories about the the elephants and donkeys being disappointing and eyesores and vandalized and such. Why are they doing it again?

[AugustWest]

You know my big beef with the Zoo, which I think Spellman had a lot to do with?  Too many freakin' expansions and renovations at once.  The past few times I've been in, the zoo looks like CRAP because there's too much construction and tearin' shit up going on.  FoNZ members are constantly being beseiged with pleas for extra donations to fix the small mammal house, to redo the buffalo exhibit, for the Polish-American heritage garden, for the damn farm/petting zoo that still isn't done, for this that and the other damn thing.  YEARS ago I sprang for a tile with my name on it at the new panda house, and WHERE'S MY fuck*ng TILE?!?  For that matter, WHERE'S THE NEW fuck*ng PANDA HOUSE?!!!  I don't even know where they're putting that mofo.

Ahem.  I don't doubt that stuff needs to be updated and replaced, but it would be better both aesthetically and from a budgeting perspective to pick one or two projects, get them freaking done, then take on more projects.

This is one thing that our little 'ol local zoo, the Louisville Zoo, has been very good about.  Every 3 years or so they start a new project/addition.  They complete it, it's fabulous and they move on to the next one.  As a long time member, I've been very pleased with our zoo and am somewhat concerned because the longtime director is leaving soon.

[pmcd9]

YEARS ago I sprang for a tile with my name on it at the new panda house, and WHERE'S MY fuck*ng TILE?!?

I'm sorry, but I hate that shit.  Any thing in the past 50 years that has been built with charitable contributions has this sort of graffiti all over the place junkin' up the facade.  Whatever happened to annonymous donor?

~Paul

[pmcd9]

You know what I hate about the zoo, it's too cheap.  Our zoo here in Houston is very nice, but it only cost $7.00 for adults and $3.00 for kids to get in.   Which means that for a city with a hellofalot of poor people with lots of kids the zoo is the place to be.  On weekends the Houston Zoo is like Woodstock with animals.  They need to raise the prices to keep the riff raff away.

~Paul

[AlohaDawg]

Paul!! You said it! I go to the zoo and it's all I can do not to punch the shit out of the little fuckers pounding the glass and the undereducated, unwashed masses taking flash pictures of animals behind glass. These stupid buffoons need to get thrown out and their misbegotten parentage-slightly-hazy offspring need to be fed to the nearest large carnivore. I love animals and I love the conservation efforts most zoos are working towards but sometimes I think they should either give people a test or assign each group of ignorant hillbillies a bouncer with pepper spray, a cattle prod and no sense of humor whatsoever.

Elitist? Shit yes. Wrong on this point? Unless they do price the zoo out of the hands of these morons, I don't think so. Maybe, like other forms of entertainment, some natural tiers could be developed....like the difference between a night at the Symphony and a Monster Truck Rally.

[wombat]

You think you have a problem - did you know that it's FREE to get into the National Zoo.

PS - Please don't pound on the glass because I HAVE TO CLEAN YOUR FREAKING FINGERPRINTS OFF IT.  Thank you.

[andalucia]

Well, this thread sure got really offensive really fast.

[slink]

Well, this thread sure got really offensive really fast.

Well, I could jump straight for the H...
No, no I really shouldn't!