http://www.elephants.com/media/chicagoTribune_9_4_05.htm

September 4, 2005
ChicagoTribune.Com
By Michael Martinez and William Mullin, Tribune staff reporters.
Michael Martinez reported from New Orleans, William Mullin from Chicago

Zoos coping with damage, helicopter roar

NEW ORLEANS -- Almost a week after Hurricane Katrina hit, the animal kingdom at the New Orleans zoo and the aquarium is struggling.

Fish are dying by the hundreds, officials say, and some otters have died. At the zoo a white alligator and a black vulture are missing. The elephants, orangutans and rhinoceroses have fared relatively well.

Ron Forman, chief executive officer of the Audubon Nature Institute of New Orleans, which owns the Audubon Zoo and the Aquarium of the Americas at a different location, said the elephants gave him the most dramatic welcome after the storm.

"They crawled through the debris and they just trumpeted--like `Where have you been?'" Forman said.

But now they face a new threat, their curator said. The constant buzzing of low-flying relief and rescue helicopters are frightening the animals. Asian elephants Jean and Panya bolted across their small savanna into a brick shelter as one passing copter whooshed overhead Saturday.

"We're really encouraged to see the military presence, but after surviving a catastrophic hurricane, an animal is going to run into a fence and break their neck," said Dan Maloney, vice president and general curator for the Nature Institute.

A skeleton staff of about 12 people, instead of the usual 200, has remained around the clock, feeding and tending to the animals. The zoo is a major attraction, with 1,800 animals.

"The most stressed animals now are the people holding it together," Maloney said. "The non-human animals seem to respond and recover more quickly than the human animals."

With almost a week's provisions remaining, caretakers are rationing water and food for the animals. More food was expected from Baton Rouge this weekend, zoo officials said.

The aquarium, a state-of-the-art facility on the levee at Canal Street on the Mississippi riverfront, reportedly weathered Hurricane Katrina with little physical damage. But it is in the central business and tourist district, where looters and gunfire have been reported.

There is no indication that looters have targeted the building, however, Jane Ballentine, a spokeswoman for the Washington, D.C.-based American Zoo and Aquarium Association, said Friday.

A small aquarium, the Marinelife Oceanarium in Gulfport, Miss., apparently fared much worse, said Ballentine, with major storm damage to the building and some animals affected, though reports were incomplete. Zoos in Baton Rouge and Alexandria, La.; Jackson, Miss.; and Birmingham and Montgomery, Ala., sustained only minor damage.

On Friday the American Zoo and Aquarium Association announced a national fundraising initiative headed by Lincoln Park Zoo President Kevin Bell to help the New Orleans zoo and aquarium.

People can donate through www.lpzoo.org or by sending a check, marked Hurricane Katrina Relief and payable to the Lincoln Park Zoo Society, P.O. Box 14903, Chicago, IL 60614.