The Columbus Zoo is a Cesspool of Sin

We probably should have seen it coming.

Columbus is one of roughly 14 cities that gained 100,000 residents in the last decade, which sounds cool until you take more than 30 seconds to think about the type of people that have been enticed to move to Columbus since 2001.

Our city leaders will gladly jerk off in public to those numbers to distract us from their ultimate mission of giving away our future to out-of-state real estate developers.

But one thing I do remember as a child in Marion, a mere 44 miles away from The Big Apple as the locals like to call it, is that the Columbus Zoo was the best zoo in America—nay, the world.

As a fourth grader who wrote an entire one-page report on the Margay and thus loved every animal in the world, I could hardly believe it. How lucky was I to be able to climb into my mom’s minivan and go see a gorilla that I was too young to recognize was high on Xanax?

It’s a good thing for the brand of the Zoo that the city has grown in that there will always be parents in the area with children that want to take their mind off the expenses of child-rearing by spending a day at the zoo. Because otherwise we might start to think it was simply an criminal racket operating between two of the worst suburbs of Columbus.

From Jennifer Smola and Alissa Widman Neese of dispatch.com back in late March:

The top two executives of the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium have resigned after an investigation by The Dispatch into their personal use of zoo assets.

Tom Stalf, who has led the zoo as CEO since 2013, and Greg Bell, chief financial officer, both stepped down, according to an internal email sent to zoo staff Monday from the zoo's board of directors chairman Keith Shumate.

Their resignations follow a Dispatch report earlier this month on their personal use of zoo resources and a subsequent independent investigation ordered by the zoo board.

Stalf, 52, and Bell, 61, allowed relatives to live in houses owned or controlled by the zoo, and sought zoo tickets for their family members to attend various entertainment events, a Dispatch investigation found. The zoo is a taxpayer-supported nonprofit organization.

Perhaps you might think that I’m being harsh on the Zoo. After all, this is simply a story about two rogue employees who got caught up in the golden era of corporate malfeasance.

That’s a fair take. I don’t agree with it but understand how you might feel that way. However, what if I told you that we had both been bamboozled by a self-serving narrative?

For example, remember Jungle Jack Hanna? Here is how he is presented on columbuszoo.org in an article entitled, “Jack Hannah, Knight in Shining Khaki.”

From the day he was hired as Director in 1978, Jack Hanna’s humble attitude, charismatic personality and superhuman energy drove his vision to transform an aging collection of pens and buildings into the world-class education and recreational organization the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium has become.

His memorable appearances on Good Morning America and the Late Show with David Letterman, as well as his own Emmy® winning TV programs, have provided Jack and the Columbus Zoo the platform to educate a global audience about the natural world.

While is he now retired, the diverse animals, habitats, and immersive experiences that define today’s Columbus Zoo would not exist without the efforts and visionary leadership of America’s favorite zookeeper, Jack Hanna, and his commitment to making the world a better place for people and wildlife.

Well, that’s certainly one side of the story.

Earlier this year, Hanna’s family announced that he was suffering from dementia. The good news for them is Hanna’s wealth ensures he will have better medical care than 99% of people that also suffer from dementia.

Yet, I’m not afraid to note that the announcement is curious considering it came at a time when serious reporters (not to be confused with The Rooster) undoubtedly began asking Hanna about how he had access to so many exotic animals during his rise to fame:

The baby tigers and snow leopards that sat in Jack Hanna's lap on late-night talk shows often didn't come from the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium and didn't end up there when the cameras stopped rolling, a new documentary alleges. 

Instead, "The Conservation Game" film says, they were shuffled among backyard breeders and unaccredited roadside zoos, facilities described as "prisons" for animals. 

The filmmakers say longtime Columbus Zoo director Hanna and other celebrity animal conservationists actively misrepresented where the exotic cats came from and where they were going, insinuating they were moving between accredited facilities that adhere to strict animal care standards and ethics policies.

The film also suggests Hanna and Columbus Zoo officials stonewalled attempts to pass federal big cat regulations, while other Ohio zoos and animal advocates expressed support for the proposed law.

The thing about Ohio is how our beloved icons operate(d) with impunity. The richest man in Ohio was the man who made Jeffrey Epstein, and his name is still on the medical center of the state’s flagship university.

It pays to be a rich asshole in Columbus. And yet somehow it was even easier back in the 1990s, before the unwashed had internet access and could trade stories about Hanna sexually harassing zoo employees and trafficking animals to appease the late-night television overlords.

Consider this comment on r/Columbus:

Hearing this stuff makes present-day Columbus much more tolerable. Past “community leaders” sweeping this stuff under the rug for a quick buck makes our current situation seem inevitable.

We have always been a hog people in Columbus. Let us finally make peace with dying as a hog people.

THOSE WMDs. The billionaire accused of history’s greatest tax fraud claims to have dementia… America without mint… On posting receipts… End of the line for Uber… How the pandemic radicalized Evangelicals.