Too many stories of animal abuse, theft and tragedies causing homelessness. With creatures essential to the integrity of life on Earth, I investigated the world’s largest urban wildlife system, the Bronx Zoo.
The buffalo was once on the nickel. A herd stretched 10 miles. Our ranges held 50 million. No more. In the 1900s we had only 1,000 head. The 1800s brought railroads. From windows, passengers shot them for sport. They were sold for meat, hides, horns. The zoo now breeds them, and the number is back to 500,000.
I petted Big Richard, a camel who wasn’t interested in learning my name, and his daughter Ruby. I visited an American-born African giraffe, 25, who prefers solitude. Mike, 18 feet tall, was timid in front of towering 5-foot-3 and 7/8 me. I hand-fed him kale, broccoli and carrots. This giraffe ate like a pig.
Kevin the year-old emu, 140 pounds, was hatched in trainer Kathleen’s bathroom tub. “We play drums and she (or he, I forgot . . . I mean, the hair’s short so unless you’re another emu — who can tell?) dances. She plays in sand, and for cleaning I hose her,” said Kathleen. “I love playing with her, but she thinks she’s a person and won’t play with another emu. She’ll climb in my lap and fall asleep. She’ll cry if left alone.” And Kevin’s diet? “Emu pellets.”
A hornbill bird just had cataract surgery. Curator Pat Thomas said: “Sticker the Porcupine raises her quills when she’s happy.” Yeah, OK. The parrot I met “likes Italian music. She’s partial to Louis Prima.”
Public Affairs EVP John Calvelli explained: “We take many wild animals that people buy then get rid of because they’re not equipped to handle them.”
About the just-razed Monkey House, director James Breheny said: “Formerly they were housed according to kind, their breeds — marmosets, tamarinds, gorillas, Congo monkeys, Asian monkeys. Now they’re mixed. Spread with other species like in the wild. Besides, Monkey House, built 1901, needed updating.”
April 28 is their 5K Save the Lions run. The Bronx Zoo, rescuing species, also takes in lone, needy or ailing animals. They’re housing a soon- to-be-endangered brown grizzly too young to survive on its own. With seven male baboons, they’re working with a European zoo to get a lady.
Poaching for horn powder, an Asian medication ingredient, has winnowed the white rhinos. Assistant director Max Pulsinelli guided my hand to feed one of their two newies. A keeper pitched grapes to snacking gibbons who wouldn’t come close. One, 33, who’d been there since ’84, clung to a treetop and just stuck out her hand. The keeper, landing almost every grape, was as good as a Yankee pitcher.
Animal lovers everywhere must be grateful to the Wildlife Conservation Society and the Bronx Zoo.
LISTED on Vanity Fair’s Best-Dressed poll selections? Lady Gaga. Lady Gaga best dressed? Who designed her loin of pork shmatta? Armour? Also Julian Schnabel. Please. Schloomy Schmabel schleps to events in pajamas. And just for the camera, several who are mentioned only show up in loaners, stuff borrowed — never owned.
ANDREW. Been in DC, knows how it works and is already packing for the White House:
1. Played potsy with the gerrymandering of districts for 10 years in return for pension reform so president-pickers will view him as business-friendly. Unafraid to trample on government workers and unions.
2. Law and order cred from the masses for expanding police use of DNA databases.
3. In the magic revenue department, more casinos triggered everyone’s favorite gimmick.
4. Avoided raising taxes on the super-rich. Don’t want Wall Street to race off to New Jersey. Shows he’s getting gov’t more in line with the private sector.
5. Making tough choices. Lay off workers, stop services, cut aid to schools, raise university tuition. Wealth through poverty. Not passing burdens onto young’uns because as things are going they won’t have anything anyway.
6. Same-sex marriage. Real accomplishment. No tough sell in this state.
A 2016 Oval Office top choice based on current poll approval.
ACROSS from Clearview Cinema, 62nd, First and York, is a new Turkish delight. Anatolia Mediterranean restaurant. Yummy. Ask for Mr. Kurt . . . Romney at a fund-raiser: “I’m not as rich as some of these guys.” He was staring at AIG’s former CEO Hank Greenberg and Johnson & Johnson’s Woody Johnson.
PER Science: Men over 85 use only half a Viagra pill. Just want enough lift so they don’t pee on their shoes.
MEXICAN billionaire Carlos Slim, who provides pay TV to Latin America and is called the planet’s richest man, is financing Internet network Ora, TV which will feature on-demand content. Launching this year, it will include Larry King’s interview show. Slim and Larry also plan a media venture.
FOLLOWING note atop magazines in 16 E. 60th office: “Do not remove from Columbia East Side Radiology.” Most were months old.
Only in New York, kids, only in New York.