Over the next half hour, Kinsey joins the sea lions to rescue a hat that a child has dropped into their pool, encourages a pair of rhinos to "do a little rough courtship," alerts female zoo patrons to the presence of a very good-looking zoo construction worker he calls Fabio, worries whether a clutch of peacock babies will have fattened up sufficiently by fall and joins Jim Blankenship backstage at the harbor seal exhibit to survey the progress of a five-month-old male known as Mac.
"Short for Immaculate Conception," Kinsey says. "Go ahead," he says to Blankenship. "Explain how that seal opened that gate when we weren't supposed to be breeding these guys at all."
Mac rolls in place in a small holding tank, after having been force-fed a lunch of raw fish instead of the seal breast milk he would have preferred. Kinsey climbs into the empty tank next to him and attempts to stare him down. "You little butterball," he says. Mac stares back at him with what looks like affection--but only if you attribute human emotions to animals. "I don't," Kinsey says, "but I'm not that interested in people words, anyway. For instance, you call polar bears mean"--I did--"but there are no mean animals. What they are is ferocious and aggressive in their hunting style. In the wild they might need to stalk a seal for three or four days, and then, if they miss, they could die. They'd better be good hunters."
But not necessarily good guys. Kinsey doesn't even attempt to analyze the bears' personality. "That's anthropomorphism," he says. "I don't do it, but it's okay. Just don't be anthropocentric. Just because you're human, the world doesn't revolve around you. You've heard it before," he adds. "Now listen to it."
We are now approaching Bear Mountain, the oldest open-moated bear exhibit in the United States--"and still state-of-the-art," Kinsey says proudly. On a ledge of artificial rock, with a waterfall pouring down behind, an enormously fat Asian bear sits Buddha-like, contemplating a tree branch. "We have three of these," Kinsey says. "They came from Italy, and at first there was a language barrier, because they only spoke Bear Italian."
Only three people are hanging over the rail at the Asian-bear exhibit--as opposed to the Klondike and Snow crush--but their ears perk up at this bit of linguistic information. "Really," Kinsey tells them. "Also, they're endangered, poached-out out of an insatiable need for bear parts. It's awful, awful."
A staff of keepers makes life interesting for this one, currently unendangered bear by stashing honey and a sort of omnivore kibble all over the exhibit, in cracks and crevices, so that he will have to forage for his food. "After that," Kinsey tells me, "he plops down in the sun, just like a bear in the wild."
A similar schedule is enjoyed by Hum, Dumbface and Fatmouth, the neighboring grizzly bears. Splashing in their pool or catching rays, they seem harmless, perhaps even cute. But appearances can be deceiving, says Rick Ball, the man who supervises their upkeep. "There are certain things you don't do," he says. "You stick your arm in there, you'd be real sorry, real fast." Does Ball like one type of bear better than another? "I don't do that," he answers, almost instantly.
Kinsey doesn't mind playing favorites with his mammals. "I love elephants best," he says, "because they're enigmatic, problematic, fascinating and incredibly intelligent. We can't even keep a bull elephant here, because we couldn't have one running around the zoo terrorizing people. Actually, I wouldn't mind, but I guess the people might.
"Why can't we just be with the animals?" he asks himself. "I mean, bears--why can't they just wander around, and if they're hungry, we just get out of their way? Bears are very intelligent. They'd figure it out. Would we?
