Zoo Story (27 page)

In the year that followed Lex’s exile, Lowry Park fought to remove itself from the shadow of all that had gone wrong. The acting CEO—Craig Pugh, who had served for years as deputy director—oversaw a revamping of the zoo’s policies. By the following spring, the zoo had regained its accreditation with the AZA, a crucial first step back toward respectability.

In September 2009, the zoo embarked on what could only be described as a halfhearted search for a new executive director. The search, such as it was, was announced with a classified ad on the AZA’s Web site. Curiously, the ad did not mention Lowry Park’s name or even that it was a zoo. Instead, it described the institution in question as simply a “West Central Florida nonprofit committed to education and species conservation.”

Why did Lowry Park word the ad so strangely? Were they afraid that no one would want to apply to a zoo that had seen so much trouble? Were they trying to keep the search quiet so that relatively few candidates would apply, therefore making it more likely for them to promote someone from within? The zoo wouldn’t say. In fact, the zoo’s management no longer wanted to talk about the events of the past several years. Even in off-the-record conversations, they acted as though Lex had never existed. A few months later, the board unanimously voted to appoint Craig Pugh as the fulltime CEO. In the press release, the board chair praised the new leader’s ability “to move this organization forward.” Pugh talked about how Lowry Park was both an animal attraction and an institution devoted to conserving nature. “A business with two brands,” he called it.

Given all the turmoil Lowry Park had endured, the desire to push on was understandable. But the zoo had become a place where certain chapters of the past were all too easily swept away. Nowhere on the public grounds was there any mention of Enshalla and all the years she’d ruled, bringing beauty and wonder to the masses. No statue of Herman had been erected. Instead a plaque was affixed to a rock near the chimp exhibit, commemorating the fallen king as “a gentle soul and friend to many.” The words, written by Lee Ann, were a true summation of Herman’s life. But most visitors walked past without noticing. The zoo was much more interested in drawing attention to the births of new animals. A map handed out at the front gates showed every exhibit where newborns awaited—marked with the word “Baby!” The marketing of new life had reached perfect clarity.

The greeting on the phone lines had been refined as well. No longer did the recording allude to any magazine’s ranking of the zoo’s suitability for children and families. The new message was simpler:

“Thank you for calling Tampa’s Lowry Park Zoo, voted the number one zoo in America.”

Lee Ann remembered.
Sometimes, it seemed as though she carried the entire zoo inside her. At the end of the day, when she rubbed her eyes from exhaustion, all of it was written on her face. The weight and hopes of this institution she loved beyond reason. Its past and present, its best moments and its worst. Countless keepers who had come and gone. Generation after generation of animals who had been born and died inside these walls. Their ghosts lived within her, and when she talked about them, it became clear that she was a captive in the garden, too, and could never let go of its endless joys and sorrows.

Her voice grew especially quiet when she told the story of what had happened to the chimps after Herman was overthrown.

“I swore I wasn’t going to talk about that,” she said.

Bamboo ruled as the alpha for three years. Old and frail as he was, he prevailed. He did not let Alex’s displays fluster him. He got along with Rukiya and the other females and was especially close to Sasha. The young female, growing rapidly, still relied on Rukiya, her adopted mother. But in Bamboo, Sasha found a father. Many nights, she still climbed into his nest and slept beside him. Bamboo and Rukiya took turns watching over her. Entranced with Sasha, Bamboo would offer her fruit and entice her to climb onto his lap. He doted on her, and she adored him back. In their bond, Bamboo found his best self.

One summer day, the keepers discovered the king’s body curled in the nighthouse. The years had caught up with him. He had struggled with congestive heart failure; his lungs had filled with fluid. Afterward, the other chimps paid their respects. One by one, they ventured inside his den and reached out to touch him and confirm he was truly gone.

Bamboo’s death, so soon after Herman’s, was difficult enough. But even more painful was the unexpected collapse of Sasha. She was three years old and appeared healthy. One Friday, she was playing and running. The next day, the keepers noticed that she wasn’t eating and seemed a little off. The following morning, when she lost consciousness, the staff took her to the clinic. Murphy tried to revive her, but it was no use. Suffering from a viral heart infection, she never woke up.

Lee Ann, who had taken such pleasure in cradling Sasha as a baby, made herself carry the female’s body into the nighthouse so that the other chimps would understand she was dead. The staff did not yet know what had killed her, because Murphy had not yet performed the necropsy. Worried that Sasha might be infectious, Lee Ann did not place her inside any of the dens. Instead she walked up to the mesh, holding the body for the others to see. The group exploded with grief. Rukiya whimpered and wailed. Then she grew angry and stomped back and forth, showing her disbelief. Finally she became silent. As the others approached the mesh and reached their fingers through the openings to touch Sasha’s body, Rukiya retreated to the back of her den and sat facing the wall. She could not bear to look at her daughter, lifeless in Lee Ann’s arms. She couldn’t look at any of them.

For days, Rukiya had trouble accepting Sasha’s death. When Lee Ann came back to the nighthouse to check on her, Rukiya would grow excited. It was obvious that the matriarch clung to the hope that the humans who had taken Sasha away could also bring her back.

The combined loss of the group’s oldest and youngest members devastated the others. Bamboo had been their leader; Sasha’s youth had graced them with new energy and purpose. Afterward, when Lee Ann watched the remaining chimps, she was struck by how subdued they were. Sometimes, they seemed lost inside an almost eerie stillness.

Nearly a year later, Alex was still not quite mature enough to become the alpha. He acted like the king, strutting along the rock wall. But when his displays grew too annoying, Rukiya quickly put him in his place. The chimps remained unfocused. They needed a spark. Lee Ann was considering bringing in an older male who could take control. Or maybe another baby.

Deciding the future of the chimps was only one of the many projects filling Lee Ann’s every waking minute. Seventeen manatees, a record number, were swimming in the rehab pools. Naboo and Jamie, the Indian rhinos, had a young calf. In Safari Africa, a pair of shoebill storks guarded a brand new chick, the first ever hatched in North America.

Lee Ann had not forgotten Lex. She wished him well, hoped he found his way. But she had little interest in theorizing about whatever had gone wrong under his tenure. She had a zoo to watch over. An imperfect zoo, yes. Sometimes glorious, sometimes maddening. But for better or worse, it was hers to worry about now.

El Diablo Blanco stared into the flames.
The wind rustled through the live oaks. In the distance, across the rolling fields of his private ranch, zebras grazed and warthogs strutted. High above, vultures circled in a flawless sky.

“Turkey vultures,” said Lex, identifying the species with a glance. He leaned toward the campfire he’d just stoked to ward off the chill of an unseasonably cool Sunday afternoon. He took off his safari hat and removed his work gloves, one finger at a time, and explained how his enemies and supposed friends had brought him down.

“I’m not a political guy,” he said, repeating a familiar theme. “I’m an operations guy, and that was part of my problem. That’s why I got bitch-slapped the way I did.”

A luxuriant pause.

“I thought if I did everything under the rules and regulations, then I would be fine.”

Elena, sitting close by, joined in. “He was doing his job. He’s never been interested in politics as a full-contact sport.”

It was the last day of February 2010. Several months before, Lex and Lowry Park had reached a financial settlement. Originally he had been told he owed $200,000. But the zoo, clearly weary of the whole affair, had agreed to accept $2,212. And just the other day, the Florida Attorney General’s Office had removed another cloud with a letter to Lex’s attorney.

After a review of police reports, evidence, and witness statements, it has been determined that further prosecution is not warranted. While it is clear Mr. Salisbury’s actions presented a conflict of interest, there is a lack of evidence to support any criminal intent.

So much for the mayor’s suggestion that Lex was a crook.

As Elena and Lex relaxed in front of the fire, they were accompanied by the two dogs who had been locked in the Pathfinder on the day of the final board meeting. Grub, worn out from sniffing lemurs and barking at giraffes, napped nearby. Pippi had climbed into Elena’s lap. The little terrier was still ailing from a nasty encounter with a
Bufo
marine toad in the yard. The toads secrete a toxic milky substance—a classic revenge of an ectotherm—and when Pippi got too close, she’d swallowed enough of the poison to nearly choke her.

“She’s deaf as a post now,” said Lex.

“She’s gotten otherworldly,” said Elena.

The little terrier was fascinating in her ability to survive anything—toxic toads, hot cars, hordes of journalists. But even more improbable was Lex’s claim that he had never been a politician. Before everything went sour, hadn’t he seduced half of City Hall?

Lex shrugged. What he meant, he said, was that he had never learned to wear the mask of a politician.

“I was myself. I wasn’t trying to
be
anything. I was able to get people enthusiastic about what I did.” That passion, he said, was always genuine. “I guess I’m a good politician if I believe in something. But I don’t consider myself a salesman. . . . I never had to be fake.”

With the dropping of the criminal investigation, Lex insisted that he had been exonerated. He pointed out, again, that Lowry Park’s relationship with Safari Wild had been blessed by the zoo’s executive committee—a fact that neither the mayor nor the zoo’s board had cared about when they went after him.

“I never tried to hide anything, and everything I did, I got approval for.”

To him, the whole thing was a witch hunt. He believed that the mayor wanted him fired because she was angry that he made more money than she did and because she needed to flex some muscle. The case against him sounded bad, no question. Ultimately, Lex said, that perception had trumped reality. He was still stunned that so many had turned on him so quickly. But he had no desire to seek retribution.

“People have to live with what they did, and if they have consciences they’re going to be harder on themselves than anything I can say or do.”

Leaving the zoo was hard. But he still worked with animals, both at his ranch and at Safari Wild. He was fighting bureaucrats and licensing issues, but hoped to open the game park within a year. Also, he and Elena were set to begin tours showcasing the animals on the ranch.

By now the sun had begun its descent toward the treetops. Sandhill cranes, their great gray wings whooshing, sailed overhead and landed in the shallows of an ephemeral wetland behind the house. On many evenings, two hundred of the cranes roosted along the shore. The air filled with their warbling calls.

Pippi, who could no longer hear the cranes, had fallen asleep on Elena’s lap. The terrier clearly held no grudges about the day she was left behind in the heat of the parking lot.

“We weren’t thinking straight,” said Lex.

“We were really stupid,” said Elena.

And yet, Lex said, Elena was now “a nationally recognized pet abuser.”

Elena explained that she hadn’t wanted to leave Pippi and Grub at home all day and that she hadn’t expected to stay inside the hotel as long as she did. Lex was in crisis mode. She wanted to be supportive. She lost track of the time. As for the dogs not having tags, she thought they’d been licensed through the zoo. What bothered her most, she said, was the idea that she might have somehow hurt her husband’s chances to stay at Lowry Park. Lex acknowledged that the incident hadn’t helped. But he was more upset for Elena, knowing how awful it must have been to be charged with mistreating the dogs—especially on TV.

“It was a day from hell,” he said.

The campfire was dying. The chill was deepening.

What had Lex learned from all of this?

He did not hesitate to answer. He had given the city a priceless gift, he said—a zoo with a national reputation and a world-class animal collection and revenues that had increased a hundredfold. In return, the ruling class had sought to ruin him and throw him in jail.

“Tampa,” he said, “eats its young.”

No one could accuse Lex
of modesty. His perpetual defiance was precisely what made some people love him and so many others loathe him. But just because he was unrepentant did not mean he was completely wrong.

Looking back on his downfall, it was hard to deny that the whole thing was driven, at least in part, by an orchestrated hysteria. Over the years, Lex had supplied his enemies with plenty of ammunition. Considering the dismal morale of the zoo’s staff after Herman’s and Enshalla’s deaths, the board might have had grounds to force him out long before the patas monkeys escaped from his island. But the outrage over Safari Wild had nothing to do with the well-being of the animals at the zoo or the game park. Despite the thunder of the audit, the scandal wasn’t about misappropriated funds, either. Otherwise, the city and the zoo would have pressed harder to recoup their alleged losses.

In the end, it was about the balance of power—who would guide the zoo into the future, who got to decide what was acceptable and what was out of bounds—among a select handful of primates. Watching the official blustering and posturing was similar to standing in front of the chimp exhibit and seeing Herman and the other drama queens shriek and pound their chests and chase one another, round and round.