Oh, Get Real!

Florida's (where else) AZA (supposedly professionals) are pushing to allow exotics to graze on public lands. What could possibly go wrong?

I can think of a few things: disease transmission, native habitat destruction, poaching and related illegal activity, escape, unauthorized reproduction...that list just goes on and on.

"We're not going to put primates out there and we're not going to put cats out there," said Larry Killmar, who is both president of the association and vice president of the Lowry Park Zoo. "We know those are hot-button species. But we could put antelopes, rhinos, giraffes out there — even elephants, if necessary."

Larry, your idiocy is showing. Zoos have space limitations - I get that. But your approach is stupid. Hell, you can't even ensure safety withing the sunny confines of Lowry Park. An elephant killed Char-Lee Torre.

July 31, 1993

A Lowry Park Zoo keeper was killed Friday when an elephant knocked her down and kicked her head, authorities said.Charlotte ''CharLee'' Torre, 24, of St. Petersburg died at St. Joseph's Hospital soon after the 10:30 a.m. accident. It occurred outside the view of visitors as the 9,000-pound animal was about to be led from its pen.''It knocked her down with its trunk and pulled her back,'' said police Officer Doug Bingle, who helped investigate. ''It then began kicking her repeatedly in the head . . . basically she was more kicked than she was stepped on.''A 31-year-old female Asian elephant named Tillie became violent after it was unshackled, Bingle said.

In the months following Tamani's birth, a surprising number of staffers leave in a mass exodus, including three of the six assistant curators who run the zoo's animal departments.

A little place like Lowry Park needs six assistant curators? Really? And you propose to have them oversee free-range operations? Really? How? Let's face it, you folks don't have any track record to brag about.

How safe is Tampa’s Lowry Park Zoo? In the wake of a beloved tiger’s death,former zoo employees and a government report raise serious concerns.

 July 3, 2002

 TAMPA -- A kangaroo breeder has sued the Lowry Park Zoo, charging it with the death of three wallabies on loan for an Australian-themed exhibit. The wallabies, which are a smaller version of a kangaroo, died after the zoo brought them from Ocala to Tampa in an unventilated Ryder truck Feb. 19, according to the lawsuit filed Monday in Hillsborough Circuit Court. Melinda Morgan, who owned the wallabies, said zoo officials had promised to transport them in a horse trailer. Zoo staff then stopped to eat at a Dairy Queen near Ocala on the two-hour trip, Morgan said.

April 29, 2008 

LAKELAND---A troop of 15 patas monkeys that split up after escaping a wildlife facility near the Green Swamp more than a week ago are starting to regroup, which could make it easier for officials to recapture them. But a subadult has been kicked out of the troop, posing a challenge for his capture, said Gary Morse, a Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission spokesman. The patas monkeys swam off a man-made island surrounded by 50 feet of water and scaled a fence a few days after they arrived at Safari Wild, a private wildlife facility owned by Lex Salisbury, president and CEO of Lowry Park Zoo in Tampa.