Hungry's Summer Holiday

Everyone once is a while, I like to write a little piece remembering specific animals that I've worked with over the years.  I don't like to play favorites, but any keeper can tell you, some animals are just special.  Today, I found myself remembering one of my particular favorites from my earliest days in the field, when I was just a teenage volunteer.  She was one of the most personality-filled animals that I ever worked with, which really surprised me back then, because she was a reptile.  I guess you could say that it was "Hungry" who taught me that reptiles were people too, in their own way.

Hungry was a crocodile monitor , one of the stars of the reptile house.  She shared a habitat with her much-larger mate, who we will call Bob.   Crocodile monitors are the longest lizard species in the world; I've heard of specimens 13 feet long an have heard rumors of even larger ones. Most of that length is tail, though, and the croc monitor isn’t nearly as solidly built as its relative, the Komodo dragon.  Bob was impressive enough on account of his size – he was a whooping eight feet from his long, Roman snout to the twitching, flickering tip of his whip of a tail.  With the look of a dragon and the temperament of an old hound dog, Bob preferred to spend his days in snoozing in the rocks, often with only his long, slender tail dangling down into view.  The public could gawk and take pictures all they wanted to; Bob didn’t give a damn.  He wasn’t getting up for anything except a meal. 

This is a crocodile monitor, but it isn't "Hungry" or "Bob" - I actually don't have any photos of either.  One of my biggest regrets from my early days in the field is that I didn't take pictures of my favorite animals.  These days I compensate by taking pictures of everything.

Hungry may only have been half Bob's length, but she had the much bigger personality, dare I say a sense of showmanship?  While Bob napped in his corner, resting in a trampled patch of potted plants, Hungry waddled and strutted along the glass front of the exhibit, swaggering as her fat belly swung left and right.  Little kids would rush up to get close to her, and she’d regard each with a connoisseur’s critical eye.  I wondered if she was trying to decide which kid would make the most delicious morsel.  Besides her willingness to tend to visitors, Hungry had beauty to her advantage.  Her soft, smooth scaly hide was a lovely tropical green, pock marked with golden spots; stripes of yellow ringed her long, elegant tail.    The kids loved Hungry, and when her yellow forked tongue would slide from between her lips, tasting the air, the kids would stick their tongues out with her.  When she pawed at the glass, so would they.  When she climbed into the branches of the dead tree in her tank, the kids would climb the railing of the exhibit, trying to keep her at eye level.

It’s been said that the cheetah is the fastest living land animal; whoever believes this must never have watched a crocodile monitor being fed.  The second that keys were heard jingling in the distance, a change would instantly come over the lizards.  Bob would rouse himself from his silent meditations, grab the nearest tree limb and slide to the ground.  Hungry would shuffle with anticipation, eyes fixed on the backdoor leading into the enclosure.  A monitor doesn’t run to its food, it flies.  When Hungry got hungry (yes, there was a reason for the name), her open maw would launch towards the proffered rat like a cannonball, with her short legs scrambling to keep up.  She looked for all the world like a comet, with a wide pink mouth for a head, tapering into a long, sleek green tail.  The rat had to be tossed quickly, or else one of the lizards might take a snap or a swipe at the dawdling keeper.  With razor sharp teeth and a bacterial bite, a nip from Hungry or Bob had the promise of being extremely unpleasant.

Feedings weren’t only rough on the feeders, but on the fed.  During one feeding, one keeper forgot the age old wisdom of reptile care – feed the big one first.  So Hungry wound up with a rat in her mouth which Bob decided that he wanted.  Next thing anyone saw, Bob had the rat, and a large chunk of Hungry’s neck, in his mouth.  After considerable amounts of screaming, pulling, and swearing, he let go, and poor Hungry was speedily rushed over to the zoo hospital in a green plastic trashcan for transport purposes.  She made a full recovery, but was never again fed with Bob.

Bob's bite wasn’t the only time that Hungry wound up on the table; soon she found herself on the operating table again, also for food related reasons.  Hungry’s overindulgence was starting to make her a little plump, and she had developed a benign tumor of fat that bulged from her left side as she basked under the heat lamps.  The keepers decided to have the fat pad removed.  The surgery was performed and declared a success, and Hungry was sewn up with bright purple thread.  She recovered nicely and, apart from a strip of violet running down her side, she looked better then ever.  The problem seemed to be solved - until the summer came along.

Heat lamps and UV bulbs are nice, but natural sunlight is the best thing for many reptiles.  Each summer, keepers would trap up Hungry and Bob and transport them to a large, well planted wire cage for the summer.  Bob, true to form, would find a branch to sleep on and sleep.  Hungry, being more adventurous, liked to explore.  One of her favorite, if bizarre, behaviors I called her Jesus impression.  She’d climb halfway up the front of her cage, then thrust her small head through the wire fencing.  She’d then put a front paw through the wire on either side of her head, her front limbs stretched out parallel to the ground at arms’ length and her lower body dangling in the air.  She looked like she was being crucified.  It looked uncomfortable as anything and I never figured out why she did it, but she would stay in that position for hours at a time, seemingly serene.  

Up until her surgery, Hungry’s fat pad had made it impossible for her to slip her entire frame out of the mesh and escape from the cage.  After the surgery, however…

When I first heard the keepers on the radio reporting an animal escape from the front section of the zoo, I'm not ashamed to admit that I panicked.   That was where the bears and big cats were housed, and if one of them were loose, we had a major problem.  Against all logic, curiosity got the better of fear and I decided to sneak over and see what was going on (cut me some slack - I was a teenager.  You're allowed to be stupid then).  

When I got to the  scene,  I saw a team of keepers chasing down a long, low green blur that was dashing behind the cages.  Hungry had been brought to bay and was fencing off three keepers before a noose was slipped over her neck, which allowed a few (heavily-gloved) keepers to grab her.  A thorough examination of the exhibit revealed no breaks or dug out areas.  Her escape was chalked up to keeper error and she was returned to her cage.  She escaped again the next week.

This time, after her recapture she was banished back to the Reptile House for the summer.  It was theorized that with her slim new physique, she had been able to squeeze through the wires of the caging, whereas previously she had been too round.  Bob had slept through both escapes (along with most of the summer).  I don't think he ever noticed a thing.