“I’ve been at the zoo for 6 years. Crazy things have happened. People are interesting. In the early part of my work at the zoo, we had experiences right outside the gate, and even on the grounds, where people–cultists–would sacrifice goats, roosters, chickens. These are not poor people doing this, because poor people would eat the animal. Then we had two mute swans in the zoo rookery, and they were pinioned, which means they couldn’t fly at all. Now the male’s very aggressive during breeding season, and a big male swan can break your legs with his wings. They’re very dangerous; you have to be very careful. Yet someone climbed the fence, probably at night, and stole both birds. Stole them. Now what I find amazing, what I think is terrible, you have to have a market for something like that. And the only place you have a market is someone with a private lake that can accommodate swans. So we’re talking about this individual who had an order for two swans. The guy who bought them is worse than the guy who took them.
“Look at the animals. If you see the squirrels burying peanuts in November, it’s going to be a terrible winter. If they eat them, it’s going to be mild. So this is how you can tell some of the things about animals, what’s going on. You can observe them.
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“There was a story about Mike the raven. He would talk all the time. He’d say, ‘Whad’ya say, Mike? Whad’ya say, Mike?’ One July evening, it had been very hot, and all of a sudden a high-pressure system moved through Chicago; it got very cool, there was actually fog along the lake. And it dropped to the 60s. The zoo cop that had been here was ill, and they sent a policeman named Michael, his first name was Michael, and it was his first time at the zoo. Mike the raven was in a cage down by the old duck yard. We also had some peacocks in that yard, and it was the mating season, so the males would call, and that call in the middle of the night can scare the hell out of anybody. Well, the cop heard that–he was just walking around, he heard that noise, and he thought it was a woman being attacked. So he ran down toward the area of where he was hearing it, and he had his gun out and it was foggy, and meanwhile the cocks had seen him and stopped calling. And as he’s walking, he goes past Mike the raven’s cage, and Mike is right there, and Mike says to him, ‘Whad’ya say, Mike?’ And the guy nearly had a heart attack on the spot. Nearly blew away the raven. That actually happened, and it was funny as hell.
“Keo the chimp had some idiosyncrasies, too. One time he caught a pigeon in his cage. He meticulously plucked all the feathers out, then he was running it around like a little windup toy in the cage. While it was alive. He didn’t want to kill it. He wanted a little toy.
