The Copper Killer

Nebraska zoo extracts 70 coins from white alligator's stomach

From Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo...

If I ever design a major zoo exhibit, there's one feature that I'm going to insist upon.  Every open-topped aquatic exhibit - seals, penguins, crocodilians, hippos - is going to be accompanied by a wishing well.  My reasoning is that humans seem to have this psychological compulsion to throw coins into bodies of water.  It just seems to be something that they can't help.  So rather than even bother trying to correct this behavior, I think we just need to find a way to redirect it towards something benign.  Throwing coins to the alligator?  Bad.  Throwing coins in the wishing well (with the understanding that the coins will then be used for conservation, or to support that animal's care, or something like that)?  Good.

If anything, I'm surprised that visitors had 70 coins in between them these days, in our increasingly cash-free society.  Hopefully that means this is at least one less hazard the animals have to worry about these days.  Now we just have to worry about someone trying to take a selfie and dropping their iPhone into the waiting jaws of an alligator.