April 22, 2010

Guess who came for dinner ... at the zoo

Zoo director Jay Christie examines the hole through which two pheasants disappeared


UPDATE, April 28: Turns out, those missing pheasants did not expire on someone's dinner table. One of them, in fact, is back at the Zoo. Jay Christie reports that one was caught on the Zoo grounds Sunday, and the other was spotted Saturday near All Saints. So be on the lookout...

Original post:

While he's enjoying the arrival of two lion cubs at the Racine Zoo, Jay Cristie is also dealing with a mystery.

Christie, the zoo director, was confronted this morning with an empty cage. Two pheasants disappeared during the night -- apparently stolen. At least a big hole in their cage's fence would appear to indicate that thieves are involved.

The missing birds are golden pheasants, with a value of no more than $15 each. They're about one and one-half years old, and if Christie had to guess the thief or thieves' reason for stealing them, his first guess is "dinner."

This is the first animal theft Christie has had to deal with in his 12 years at the zoo.

20 comments:

  1. As economic stress and distress increase, less-fortunate people will view zoo critters as dinner. Back during the Franco-Prussian War, rank-and-file Parisians slaughtered and devoured their zoo's elephants and zebras. Later on, during the current conflict in Afghanistan, the Kabul zoo's flamingo flock morphed into kebabs for local warriors and their friends. Today, with a depression in full swing, there are folks who resent being taxed out of their homes to support giraffes and Ankole-Watusi cattle. I know more than one working Joe who wishes that Mr.C. would turn large, pricey-to-maintain herbivores into free or cheap protein for the poor.

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  2. 9:40 - Mr. Angry - give me a f..... break.

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  3. Eat the Canada Geese first, please.

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  4. Tim the Shrubber4/23/2010 11:12 AM

    Yeah...Racine is just like Kabul. {ROTFLMAO}

    I agree w/ 8:58.

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  5. I don't know why this is a joke. I don't know why the zoo director is standing there smiling. Theft is a very serious issue! Would he be smiling if someone cut a hole in the fence and expensive monkeys escaped?

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  6. Yeah I think we need some recipe cooking tips for the geese.

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  7. FYI to all, the Zoo is private. Your tax dollars do not pay for the Zoo. If you did, the employees would probably be paid more.

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  8. I have no idea where you are getting your information but our tax dollars most certainly do pay for the zoo.

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  9. You bet our tax dollars support the zoo! That's why my low-income neighbors (who are being taxed to the max) wonder why Mr. Christie is grinning and smirking about the theft of those golden pheasants he was supposed to protect.

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  10. Question: why does a down-and-out Rustbelt burg like Racine have a zoo?

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  11. Ummm...taxes make up only a portion of the zoo's revenue each year, and that number has been declining. There are plenty of other things that city or county government pay for with many more of your tax dollars that you could be complaining about.

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  12. Ummmm . . . wasn't complaining about the taxes, simply pointing out that taxes do go to the zoo. The proportion was not relevant to that statement. I was annoyed with the attitude that "it was just a couple of cheap pheasants that were stolen".

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  13. 10:09 - so that they can put people like you behind bars.

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  14. Dear 4/27/2010 12:57 PM, As a Christian, I'll forgive that insult to God's poor and my less-than-solvent self. Regarding the theft and possible torture or slaughter of the golden pheasants, I wish that Mr. Christie had shown more concern about the birds. Since he's the CEO of our zoo, it's Mr. Christie's responsibility to see that the birds and beasts entrusted to him are safe from abuse.

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  15. Even inexpensive pheasants are God's creatures and deserve decent treatment. What happened to those birds is no laughing matter.

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  16. One picture is worth a thousand words. The smile on Mr. Christie's face tells me more than I want to know about the Racine zoo and its upper-echelon personnel.

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  17. In view of the present depression, Racine should close its zoo instanter. We neither need nor want a zoo in a sorry city which leads the state in minority infant mortality.

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  18. I think they take pretty good care at the zoo. I haven't seen any peacocks on rooftops in the neighborhood for about 10 years now. I sorta miss 'em.

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  19. Dickert is going to be known as the mayor who drove business out of town and lost the pheasants at the zoo.

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  20. Here's hoping that the missing pheasant returns home a.s.a.p. and that all the critters receive good care.

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