By Harry Glickman, with Jeannette Glickman
Woodland Park in Seattle has been there for a long time. My first visit to see and feed the animals must have been in 1920 when I was four years old. A great sport then was to throw pieces of bread to the creatures behind the iron bars. Later on after the depression years the animals were fed French-fried potatoes, cookies, peanuts, candy, hot-dog or hamburger. It was about 40 years later when veterinarians learned that junk food was bad for the health of the animals which were getting very expensive to replace.
When gorillas cost a hundred thousand dollars each, signs appeared "DO NOT FEED THE ANIMALS".
It was in the Haifa Zoo visiting with Yishai, my five-year old grandson, when I first saw the warning sign. He could not understand why he could not share Bamba, the most popular nosh for Israeli children, with the monkeys. My explanation of the value of these animals and how important it was to keep them healthy and alive put this five year old into deep thought as he stuffed Bamba into his mouth!
Harry with Jen, Jan. 31, 2000
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