The Coming "Great Gulf Coast Zoo Kill"

The fight to save the Northwest Florida Zoo isn't over, writes PNJ reporter Louis Cooper. There's a petition on line to try to convince our county and city leaders to reverse their earlier refusal to fund the Northwest Florida Zoo for "a second year."

As it is, reporter Cooper laments, a couple of valuable Orangutans already have been shipped off to one creditor. And zoos that previously loaned other animals to the Northwest Florida Zoo "have been asked to pick them up, " according to Bob Zwitzer, an owner of the Zoo land the animals inhabit. Adds Switzer:

"We are in the process right now of getting bids for all of the animals," he said. "We're also talking to people who might want to buy all of the animals at one time, as a collection. Then we're talking to a third group of people who want to keep the zoo here."

The one thing Cooper's report doesn't mention is what happens if no one wants all the animals, birds, reptiles, and fish? There are thousands of them out there. While a few may be sufficiently unique to attract the interest of other zoos, our sources say the vast majority of zoo animals are not likely to attract any bids -- and it may not even be possible to give them away -- unless someone buys the entire zoo as a package deal.

Chances of that happening are very slim and they plummet from there. Knowledgeable zoo officials we know are talking about the most likely scenario yet to come, but only in hushed tones.
As far as they can see, unless county commissioners reverse themselves or someone steps up to buy the whole zoo, the only realistic alternative is to kill all the animals that can't be sold individually.

Remember the Great Goose Kill at a local golf course a couple of years ago? It became the "story that would not die," attracting attention from all over the world. And, it wasn't an attractive story.

The Great Goose Kill will look like a small family squabble compared with what's in store for tens of hundreds of animals at the Gulf Breeze Zoo if someone doesn't step up soon and save the place.

Citizens can sign the petition to save the Zoo here. But the people who really should be signing it are Gulf Coast tourism promoters and local politicians who expect to run for reelection.

Dept. of Dead Links, Revived

After reporter Cooper's article of today disappears behind Gannett's thoroughly useless pay-to-see- what-we-wrote-last- week screen in seven days, you can still read a lengthy excerpt of it at the Chimpanzee Info Blog.

minor edit
9-20 pm