NICK PODELL, GROWN-UP

In commenting on San Francisco’s shameful response to the tiger mauling incident at its zoo, I mentioned the name of the Zoological Society head, Nick Podell [left in photo below], in less than flattering terms.

It turns out that Nick is a stand up guy. When things go wrong, the person in charge is supposed to take responsibility, not dodge it. It’s simply part of the job.

According to Fog City Journal’s excellent coverage of a special BOS committee meeting, Mr Podell spoke like a leader.

Zoological Society board chairman Nick Podell told the committee, "Under no circumstances is it OK for an animal to escape."

"I want to deliver a mea culpa for the zoo," he said. "There is no excuse and the focus of the Zoological Society is to make sure it will never happen again."

What a breath of fresh air!

As this blog continues to predict, Tigergate has just begun. The SFPD coverup-investigation, seeking to frame the victims, has officially come up dry. The investigation into criminal culpability on the part of present or past zoo officials has yet to begin.

Podell’s mea culpa may signal that the Zoo management coverup is starting to sink. His candor may serve as a personal floatation device.

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WHO'S MOST TO BLAME?

City Powers' attempt to pin the tiger escape on the victims has failed, at least according to this SFGate story:

S.F. Zoo mauling investigation winding down

The purpose of the SFPD investigation, it seemed, was to turn up evidence that the victims had committed a crime, also (and I wonder how legal this was) to discover evidence that would help the City defend any tiger related law suits.

Anyway, the victims were treated like criminals.

The police investigation into the tiger attack at the San Francisco Zoo will soon be reclassified as "inactive" after a search failed to turn up evidence that the victims taunted the animal or committed other crimes, authorities said Friday.

With plenty of leaked information about marijuana, vodka, eyewitnesses, and rap sheets, everything was done to vilify the victims. I’d like to know Manuel Mollinedo’s blood alcohol level at the time of the attack.

No wonder poll results (non-scientific) show overwhelming public opinion still blaming the kids.

This graphic appears right next to the news story cited above.

I guess San Franciscans don’t require evidence to form an opinion.

Meanwhile, what about criminally negligent homicide charges against Mollinedo?

1. He knew (or should have known) it was unsafe.
2. He told potential visitors that it was safe.
3. A visitor died.

Clearly so far, City Powers is incapable of investigating itself, proving once again, that when push comes to shove, SF behaves like a xenophobic little hick town.

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GOOD OLD ZOO DAYS

As a student poet, say 19 years old, I was working assiduously though the melancholia part of the curriculum. A couple of fog-layered afternoons while I was still living at home by the zoo, I’d walk down to visit the largest land mammal in North America, the Kodiak bear.

I seem to remember two, but brown bears couldn’t be that social, so there was probably just the one.

Anyway, the Kodiak bear lived in a grotto similar to the now famous tiger grottos, a concrete platform separated from the public by a dry moat, with fake rocks sloping down into the moat on the bear’s side.

The nearby snack stand (now the Terrace Café) sold standard snack stuff including, oddly, bags of full sized marshmallows at prices that even indigent melancholy student poets could afford. [Note: “indigent melancholy student poets” would be all one word in German.] The zoo had very few visitors on dreary weekday afternoons.

I’d feed a whole bag to the Kodiak bear. Once getting his attention with the first one tossed onto his platform, he’d come to the edge of the moat for more.

I’d throw the marshmallows (I was a baseball player) and he’d catch them in his mouth. If he missed (usually my fault) he’d retrieve the errant piece.

I made the bear do more for each succeeding marshmallow until he wound up sitting on his haunches on the edge of the moat with his feet dangling over the side, the way a human sits on the edge of a swimming pool.

I made him wave one of his forpaws to ask for another marshmallow. We got the routine down before the bag was finished.

A couple of passersby marveled at the interaction, but I’m pretty sure a bear will do anything for marshmallows. I would.

The third time I returned to feed the bear, the snack bar had ceased selling marshmallows. Someone snitched.

The Kodiak bear is long departed. Zoogoers must content themselves with “grizzlies,” whose name sounds fierce, but who are in truth puny cousins to the mighty Kodiak!

Throwing marshmallows to bears today would probably get you arrested.

Marshmallows can’t be good for a bear’s digestion or dental health. But heck! Could you imagine being locked up and forced to eat only “healthy foods” for the rest of your life?

Who’d want to be a bear under those conditions?

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ZOO, ZOUNDS!

I’m pretty sure I’ve never paid for admission to San Francisco’s Zoo.

Once, a friend and I went there for lunch on a pretty day; he was a Zoological Society member so entry was free. My impression then as decades earlier, was that zoo visits are a lot about birds and birdshit.

Whatever other species he or she might seek out, a zoo visitor will definitely experience birds: seagulls, pigeons, and those nasty little black things (“pickies” we called them in babytalk).

Governance of the zoo is murky.

The land (presumably improvements also) and animals are owned by the City and County and are administered by Rec and Park.

There is an entity called San Francisco Zoological Society, an organization with a 60-member board of directors.

And there’s some “joint board.”

In the wake of Tatiana’s breakout we learn the name of the SFZS board’s chairman, Nick Podell, whom a Bizjournal story states is a partner in a Burlingame real estate firm, MH Podell, Company. Nick is on the left in the below Chronicle photo.

Elsewhere, MH Podell Company is said to a sole proprietorship of someone named Michael Podell.

Certainly, anyone who can figure out how to be a partner in a sole proprietorship can run a zoo, or a spaceship for that matter.

There is so much to learn about San Francisco’s zoo, for instance:

A zoo seems mostly a family oriented entertainment venue. And zoo supporters are stereotyped as dodderers with just a bit more spunk than, say, Botanical Society members.

Recognizing an untapped constituency, SF Zoo reaches out to the city’s hordes of young professionals with Zoo II.

Zoo II is a social club of young professionals dedicated to expanding conservation, awareness, providing and encouraging financial support of the San Francisco Zoo while connecting to others in the community and enjoying a variety of social activities.

I’m sure that Zoo II admits “young professionals” of all ages, at least judging from this photo of the committee’s leadership.

Strangely the accompanying caption on the zoo’s website names only three of the four people pictured.

The 2007-2008 Zoo II Committee is led by Jeff McNulty, Chair and co-Vice Chairs, Ann Cheney & Sarah Gammill.

There is another “mystery” fourth person with the group of Tatiana’s victims, at least as reported in today’s SFGate.

Jennifer Miller, who was at the zoo with her husband and two children that ill-fated Christmas afternoon, said she saw four young men at the big-cat grottos

All previous reports mentioned only three young men in the group of victims. The victim-mystery deepens.

Anyway, no speculation yet on how the demise of Tatiana will affect Zoo II’s signature annual event, the Fur Ball, featuring

music from the DJ, cocktails and a variety of heavy hors' dourves.

The second annual Fur Ball is scheduled for June 28, 2008. The venue, get this, is the Lion House at the zoo. The Lion House is home, also, to the zoo’s tigers, and was home to Tatiana before she was gunned down.

How Tatiana’s absence will affect the Ball’s mood, or even attendance, is to be seen.

Wouldn’t it be perfect if they got a cute little kitty cat to fill Tatiana’s former place, I mean, in time for the party!

I wonder if the big cats are forced attendees at these Fur Balls. Talk about cruelty! Locked in a cage, perfectly sober, watching a bunch of young professionals drinking, and eating heavy hors’dourves—I’d be planning a breakout, too.

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THE NEIGHBORHOOD ZOO

We end the year with a significant local mystery: What’s up with the two surviving tiger-maulees? What was the nature of their visit to the zoo?

This human-interest side intrigues me, but doesn’t concern me.

What concerns me about the mauling incident (aside from empathy for the victims and their loved ones) is the attention it brings to my immediate neighborhood.

At least some changes are in store at the zoo. The question is, will it remain a zoo with approximately the same attendance patterns as at present? Or will some other “best use” be found for the land?

Put it this way: if the current zoo property were developed for housing, the quality of my life would decline significantly. I suppose this is true of any public park, but the attention makes me nervous.

Actually it would make a great facility for wheel-sports. Sometimes that’s what we used it for, as kids.

In my youth the zoo was still run by Rec and Park, and admission was free. (Just as the museums, the Conservatory of Flowers, and the Academy of Sciences were all free.)

After school sometimes we’d ride our bikes in the zoo, around the cages, past the aviary and the grottos. We’d lay out race courses. We could do this because there were absolutely no zoo visitors (or maybe one or two) to disturb. You know, a Wednesday in March, cold and windy, maybe rained earlier in the day.

Looking at the irregular network of pathways (all smoothly paved) from above, these grounds cry out for wheel-sports—bicycles, skateboards, roller skates.

For the time being, after removing the dumbest animal, disgraced director Manuel Mollinedo, they should probably remove the bigger animals, just on humane grounds. After that I hope they spend the next twenty years tweaking smaller-animal exhibits, until they finally give up and make it a roller park.

By that time I’ll be dead.

I was going to rant about the puling bureaucratic response of zoo director Manuel Mollinedo—blaming the victims in what he knows is a strict-liability situation, and claiming that his records show that the wall was 20 feet high—immediately after the mauling.

Judging from public comment, and from this Sunday Chron story, Mr Mollinedo is on his way out.

Another mystery is the paperwork that shows the wall as 20 feet high. The chances of this being an innocent “clerical error” approach zero. Was this paperwork relied upon for accreditation and insurance purposes? If so, we’re talking about possible significant fraud, which may have contributed to a death.

The mystery draws us into the new year.

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