Caveat lector: This is a longish post that will have limited appeal. It's important to me for a number of reasons. At least there are some nice pictures. You can skip the text if you want, and just look at the photos—that's ok with me. 

There's been a lot of death here recently.

I'm not referring to the unquestionably tragic and ubiquitous human carnage—rather, I'm talking about what has happened behind the walls, screens, barriers, wires and fences at the local zoo.* 

Bad luck and bad timing seems to have kept the animal death count in the news, that which is reported anyway—reporting accurately is another matter. The Dallas Zoological Society has had a run of bad luck.

Hildy was the oldest giraffe in the world when she died late in 2007. They normally live to about 25 in the wild, Hildy was 33. She has great-grandchildren in zoos across the country. 

But someone didn't tell the truth. The day after her death was reported in the Dallas Morning News the short article said that the "zoo keepers found Hildy lying down on the floor in her pen early in the morning." That may be technically true—maybe. I talked with one of Hildy's keepers two days later and she was understandably quite upset, not just at losing a beloved friend and companion, but how it was reported. Hildy was housed in an old and inappropriate enclosure comprised of two areas; a small outdoor enclosure and an orange brick covered room. It was a tiny space that she shared with her daughter Kibo. Next to the viewing fence, in the outdoor area, was an empty moat—an empty cement lined moat. Why in the world there had to be a moat is not known since all the restraint a giraffe needs in a sturdy fence. 

Hildy tripped and fell in the moat, according to the keeper I talked with—they had to winch her out and then took her to her indoor sleeping quarters where there were thick padded mats over the concrete floor. So in a sense, if some of the keepers came to the giraffe enclosure after that fact, the above quote would be accurate.

Zoos don't like bad PR, but then who does? You can see a short video of Hildy and one of her keepers here.

My most recent trip to the Dallas Zoo was last week. The moat was filled in with soccer ball-sized rocks. 

Giraffa camelopardalis reticulata. Hildy on the right with her daughter Kibo in a serendipitous "pushmepullyou" pose. You can see the calcification due to age-related arthritis in Hildy's left fore-knee.

Hildy's beautiful daughter Kibo

When you choose the giraffe to be the iconic representation of the zoo, you ought to do right by that choice and be honest with patrons, supporters and the public.

The sculpture at the entrance to the zoo, and visible from nearby Interstate 35, rises to a height of nearly 68 ft. I'm not sure if that includes the lightening rod at the tip of her tongue, but it probably does.

Most entities will try to put out the best possible take on things, especially when things go bad or there's some controversy. The Dallas Zoo is no different, and so much of its operating costs are dependent on donations and government subsidies, that it's hard to fault them for not being completely forthcoming, even when it's ugly. But there's no excuse, they should be honest. It's our money after all. (I'm also a Sustaining Member, so my three figure donation, while modest by most standards, means I have a stake in wanting the truth too.)

The other problems at the zoo, and recent deaths, seem to have been just bad luck without any hint of conspiracy to shape the public relations. In March of 2004, a gorilla named Jabari scaled a retaining wall and injured three visitors. He was fatally shot by the City of Dallas SWAT team after being unsuccessfully pursued by zoo employees. Changes were made to the emergency response protocols at the zoo after the incident.

Unfortunately, several high profile animals have recently died. We lost Ramses, the zoo's only male Mandrill:

Mandrillus sphinx (don't you just love that Linnaean binomial?) 

Ramses, an 18-year-old lifelong Dallas zoo resident, died of natural causes. His death came three days after the death of 55-year-old Jenny, the world's oldest gorilla in captivity. A month previous to Ramses' passing, the 43-year-old silverback gorilla Hercules died of a cardiac arrest after undergoing treatment for arthritis to relieve back pain.

Boris, a majestic 415-pound African lion died from cancer in April of last year. Lions live an average of 15 years in the wild, Boris was 17 at the time of his death.

But by far the most distressing death was the recent passing of the elephant Keke. Keke was 39 years old and died from complications related to a severe case of intestinal colic. Keke came to Dallas from the Caldwell zoo in Tyler, Texas in 2003, to be a companion to Jenny. They quickly grew to be very close.

These things happen. But the controversy here is of a different sort, one that pitted different factions within the city, indeed across the country, against each other and against the zoo management.

Elephants are amazing creatures. They have a larger brain than any other land animal, indeed, for the size ratio of body to brain, they have the largest brain of any animal. While the largest whales have body ratio masses twenty times the typical elephant, whale brains are typically only twice the size of an elephant's. 

And they put those brains to good use. Mirror self recognition is a test of self awareness used in animal studies. Visible marks are placed on the elephant that would only be seen in a mirror. Some control non-visible marks were also made to rule out any other of the senses detecting the marks. The elephants investigated the visible marks in the mirror, identifying the locations in the mirror and touching the marks with their trunks. This demonstrates that elephants are self aware and recognize that the image in the mirror is their own. These abilities to see and react to yourself in such a deliberate way are considered the basis for empathy, altruism and higher-order social interactions. Humans, apes and dolphins have the same interactions with mirrors.

No one denies the social acumen of elephants. They need to be with others of their kind. Communication is important for them, as for all social creatures. In addition to their typical trumpet calls and vocalizations, elephants have the ability to detect infrasound, a sub-sonic rumbling which can travel through the ground farther than sound travels through the air. They can be felt by the elephants sensitive feet and trunk. Witnesses describe seeing the members of a herd facing toward the infrasound together with one foreleg poised above the ground to increase the pressure of the other legs in contact with the surface. They often lay their trunks on the ground to pick up the sensitive signals.

a larger view of this image is found here. For an even closer view, you can see the original 3,900 pixel wide version here.