Thou shalt not kill, for goodness' snake | MARK HUGHES COBB
Way back in the playback when I lived in Fort Walton Beach ― west of Mary Esther, anticipating my future ex-wife's promotion to a management job in Pensacola; splitting the driving difference between there and my work at the Northwest Florida Daily News ― for 18 months, the Zoo (now called the Gulf Breeze Zoo) was petite, about 19 acres.
For a sense of perspective, because I'm probably not the only one descended from farm folk who nonetheless can't picture an acre in my noggin, the Birmingham Zoo covers 122 acres, with another 27 left for expansion.
After extensive investment over intervening decades, the Gulf Breeze Zoo now covers more than 50 acres, or about what the old Birmingham Zoo began with, back in the mid-1950s.
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Size ain't everything, though with gorillas, rhinos, and orangutans ― they'll have all my spirit animals when they add German shepherds, elephants, hedgehogs and the blue-footed booby ― the Gulf Breeze Zoo is up to something. They've also got hippos, giraffes, camels, Scottish highland cows and boy do I not spirit animal this in any respect, alligators. For those wanting to get up close and funky at Gulf Breeze, you can feed the camels, the giraffes, the cows and the ... 'gators? Really? The only thing I'd want to feed them is extinction. No doubt these lumbering, toothy oafs add something to the biosphere, but aside from alligator shoes, I can't profess to care.
How the Florida zoo is fitting all this ― lions, tigers, anteaters, budgies ― into 50 acres seems a miracle of Level 29 Tetris proportions, or perhaps an Escher-Rubik's Cube-multiverse phenomenon, holding more than 1,000 animals there, from "nearly every continent," so I'm guessing no Antarctic denizens because they have 'roos, Galapagos tortoises, green iguanas, ball pythons ....
Now we're touching back to the future. Even at 19 acres, back when ― the zoo was opened in 1984 ― it hosted exotic guests, reptile style.
The paper hours fit: 3 to 12 p.m. As a night owl, I can't sleep 'til morning anyway. Back then, with functioning knees, I'd drive post-midnight to Henderson Beach, east of Destin, snacking on a carb-heavy dinner. I'd barefoot-run from the parking lot until first sign of civilization, which took 20 minutes ― of course it's all condo'd up now ― turn around and run back, then cool off in the surf. Yes, I've heard about sharks, and no, I'm no more fan of them than 'gators. But that was my exhaustion routine, which meant I'd get to sleep by 3 a.m., instead of 4 or 5.
That left daylight to run errands or do favors, like accompanying fellow reporter Tracy to the zoo. We got to play with a baby lion cub once, the size of a chunky housecat, but with raw claws. His purr was a miniscule growl, like a motorcycle rolling off around the other side of a hill. Awwwwwwwww and owwwwwwww.
Tracy was a frequent visitor that summer because of a German herpetologist in residence, seeking to set a record by living inside an enclosure with 24 vipers, cobras and rattlers, and 30 non-poisonous snakes.
Jurgen Hergert, 43 at the time, lost nine pounds and his girlfriend, in part because he was living with 54 snakes inside a glassed-in zoo enclosure on the Florida Gulf Coast in summer. He suffered a kidney problem, and worried himself near-sick over his 74-year-old mom, who'd been hospitalized.
And yet he stuck it out, 102 days. Dude was hardcore, whatever you might think of herps.
And yes, herps is a thing, short for herptiles, which encompasses amphibians and non-avian reptiles. Pretty sure none of Jurgen's snakes flew, 'cause that feels like a sight you'd recall, deep in the night.
Two months later, one of Jurgen's former students, a South African, broke his record with a 107-day stay. That held until Oct. 7, 2008, when "Mad" Martin Smit, another South African, broke that with 113 days in a glass snake house.
Tracy was one of Jurgen's lifelines. She'd sit outside the enclosure ― smaller than a Waffle House, consisting of a front room basically all window, bedroom, bathroom and kitchen ― and interview him via an intercom-type phone. He invited Tracy in, and offered to shuffle many of his pals into a closed room for the visit, but I believe her response went something along the lines of notinamillionyearsyikes.
On Aug. 24, the day he was to get out, my pal ― I don't wanna say begged ― but nicely asked if I'd ride along. Her boyfriend either was working or was even less herp-friendly than me, my home was along the way, and I think she promised me ice cream. Jurgen had been ― I don't wanna say flirting ― but talking avidly with Tracy, who was adorable, bright, lovely. Who could blame him? And who could blame Tracy for being a teensy bit wary of a lonely, homesick guy escaping an enclosure?
I can't recall if she introduced me, but I was strictly forbidden from leaving her side. Jurgen gave a news conference, and during his talk, began crying. From relief, possibly, from exhaustion, probably, and from grief, for all he'd given up ... but also, you know, from the heart.
Jurgen suggested if you were tooling down the road and saw a snake crossing: Stop, get out and help it across.
I mean. Bless his heart. Literally, not sarcastically.
"Don't keel snake. Don't keel big lion!"
I'm not sure what hellscape I'd be motoring where lions and snakes rear up under my wheels, but OK. I'll buy the premise. I'm not a pure psycho. I woudn't speed up to run over a snake, or lion, or even an 'gator, though the latter mainly because they'd shred my tires. From within the herp fam: a turtle. I'd stop for Yertle.
But as with squirrels, deer and other morons, sometimes there's just no way. If the choice comes down to flattening a skunk or shattering a friend's head through the windshield from sudden deceleration, no need to think twice.
But Jurgen. Man, who loves so much? Maybe Mr. Rogers or Dolly Parton, though I bet Dolly could kill, and possibly fry up, a snake.
We chuckled afterward, as did the rest of the newsroom. Later ― much later, like, oh, now ― I felt a little sad, both about Jurgen, and about me, for finding his quest so risible. I can't think of too many with hearts so expansive they'd sacrifice a chunk of their life to make a ― probably futile ― point about how we shouldn't reject The Other.
He took 102 days ― three drought-ridden months in Panhandle heat, which beget "Florida Man ... " headlines just as do 24-hour Waffle Houses, bath salts and fentanyl patches ― out of his life to speak for the voiceless, the legless, the hairless. The ― if I'm still being honest despite this late bout with empathy ― ick.
Many of us judder, and avoid, if we see a human who looks odd: maybe goth, or punk, a different color skin, or heck, just a cockily jaunty way of walking.
Evolution again, our simultaneous friend and nemesis, causes that herp part of our limbic system to fear differences. When we were tiny tribes, scavenging, foraging and scrapping for existence, it behooved us to protect our own. The Other must needs become potential threats.
Now we're a bit evolved, or at least some of us, not including the occasional country singer, and can extend our circles. A vegan might argue for sanctity of all life. Or all animal life. Gotta feed off something, and dirt won't get it.
All life that's cute, not counting microbial millions we scrub off when we shower or shave. So, you know, creatures with warm blood, fur and cuddliness, like dogs and cats .... OK, some eat those, too. This vicious circle of life.
Among those who live carnivore, I can't imagine many wish even edible animals to actually suffer. But do we do anything about factory farms, or do we quietely accept, as we must with so much, the myriad compromises that make life with nearly eight billion alpha beasts feasible?
Many have complex feelings about zoos. We've locked our fellow living up, forced 'em into enclosures, made them dance — metaphorically, anyway; literally if you're talking circuses — for amusement.
But as with most zoos that function not just for display, but also as conservationists and educators, there's virtue in the closeness, literally, and kinship, by extension, with animals we'd otherwise never see, or may actively avoid.
From where does empathy derive? How can we learn to accept differences, except to be near and among them? To live with, see them, sense them, and realize their lives as real and tangible and precarious as ours?
The year after Jurgen's stunt, a movie came out called "The Princess Bride," its script written by William Goldman, based on his novel. He put in Wesley's mouth the words "As you wish," when he means "I love you."
Don't keel snake.
Reach Tusk Editor Mark Hughes Cobb at mark.cobb@tuscaloosanews.com.
This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: Thou shalt not kill, for goodness' snake | MARK HUGHES COBB
