Snakes and the San Francisco Zoo
I’ve been going to the San Francisco Zoo for years. As a family chiropractor, I often take a day off during the week so that I can be available on Saturdays for whole families to come in at one time, so it makes it easy for me to visit the Zoo on weekdays, non-summer and non-holidays, when it’s not so crowded and I can feel a certain oneness with the animals — just them and me — with fewer humans around to pull me away from my similarities with the rest of Nature. As anyone who’s a local “zooaholic” like me knows, our SF Zoo has had its share of problems, casualties, and tragedies over the year; and parts of it have been closed, now and then, for a myriad of reasons less dramatic. But, never in all the years that I’ve been visiting the local representatives of the wild-world-at-large, has the door been locked to the reptile exhibit. Let’s face it, besides hearing that a lion has escaped, the last thing you want to read on a sign on a locked door is “World of Reptiles is closed today – Egyptian cobra is missing.” But, that’s exactly what happened this past weekend at the Bronx Zoo New York!
That sort of thing sends chills up my spine (no chiropractic pun intended)! I’m not a complete herpetophobic. Okay, maybe I am! It could be possible that my desire for oneness with all life leaves out certain slippery, slinky, scaly creatures who crawl on there bellies. And, let’s face it, the Egyptian cobra is most likely the very asp whose venom Cleopatra used to commit suicide! This particular “missing cobra” was not full grown. An adult can reach a length of up to two yards! This one, an adolescent, was only 20 inches, but who wants to run into a teenage whose toxin can cause respiratory failure!!
My point is that the San Francisco Zoo, even with a few glitches here and there, is a fine, wonderful, safe place to visit year round and I encourage everyone to do so…but not necessarily on weekdays. That’s when I’m there communing with Nature.
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