Bad-Ass Benny and the Napoleon Complex

It’s common for zookeepers to discover that the animals that they come to love and care about the most aren’t always the animals that are the most impressive or popular with the public.  From the public side of the railing, visitors can't realize just how enormous the personalities are with some of the most humble-looking animals.   Animals like Bad-Ass Benny

Benny (not his real name) was a Speke’s gazelle, a tiny little antelope from northeast Africa. Barely two feet at the shoulder, he had a plump little sandy body propped up with toothpick-thin legs.  His graceful neck held up an impish face, with a small flap of skin on the tip of his nose.  When excited, this flap puffed up like a balloon until it was the size of a tennis ball.  At the top of his hand was a tiny pair of neat, small sharp horns.  At a first glance, Benny looked like the most ordinary, uninteresting beast in the zoo - not that he usually even got that first glance.  Guests rarely saw him; he was only on exhibit for half a day, since he shared the yard with a pair of oryxes who he rotated on-and-off with.  When he was in the yard, he preferred to lie on a dirt heap, where he blended in perfectly against the sand.  He never called attention to himself, and he never made a show for the guests.  Those first glances were deceiving.  Benny was a bad ass.

He may have been tiny, but every ounce of Benny's petite frame was crammed with attitude, until he was one fearless, dangerously confident little antelope.  He delighted in racing along the fence line, tormenting the cheetahs in the adjacent enclosure.  You could tell that he was practically chanting, “You can’t catch me!”  

Benny was under the impression that all things in this world fell under two categories – food and sparing partners.  When first introduced to the massive scimitar horned oryxes, each the size of a small horse, he instantly tried to herd and dominate them.  Imagine an animal the size of a beagle trying to mount an animal the size of a horse.  That gives you an idea of what it looked like.  They promptly kicked his ass, hence the rotation in use of the yard.  Refusing to learn his lesson, the pint-sized gazelle would continue to challenge the oryx (and the cheetahs, and the zebras who were his neighbors on the opposite side of the enclosure as the cheetahs) through the fencing.  I had a hard time imaging Benny backing down to a lion, or an elephant, for that matter.  

Benny liked to stay in practice by challenging inanimate objects to duels.  On more than one occasion, we found him with an entire flake or two of hay impaled on his horns, shaking to get the wisps of hay from his eyes, and we knew that he had successfully vanquished his enemy.  During the winter, for enrichment purposes (ours and his), we would make him snowman (well, snow gazelles, really) to challenge.

Benny had shared his yard with a pair of crowned cranes; when one of the birds had died, the other had become lonely and bored.  Until another crane could be found, the keepers had installed a mirror in the yard, so the bird would have someone else to “talk” to.  It worked marvelously, and the bird spent hours preening and honking and resting with her new friend.  One day, when cleaning the yard, I glanced up at the mirror for no particular reason.  There, in the reflection, was Benny, just fifteen feet behind me, pawing the ground and shaking his little head for the charge.  I spun around, only to find him staring with the look of martyred innocence.   I turned back to the mirror.  He was again preparing for a charge.

From that day on, whenever I entered Benny's domain, he would slip up behind me, stalking me like a big cat.  If I’d turn around, he’d freeze, and then pretend to graze or to take a nap.  He was not only fearless, but crafty. The Bambi eyes didn’t fool anyone. From that point on, I made a habit of not turning my back on Benny while I was in the yard.

Benny was a pretty old boy when I met him, and he lived for many years after I left him.  He has since passed on.  I had a hard time believing it when his keepers told me - I just assumed he was too cocky and full of himself to ever day.  Sometimes when I visit other zoos and see some quiet, unassuming animal of the non-celebrity type (not a big cat or bear, pachyderm or primate), I find myself watching them a little extra closely, wondering what kind of stories their keepers might tell.