So apparently drunken idiots rioted at the Pumpkin Festival in Keene, NH (thus proving John Oliver wrong- they really do need their MRAP), and in Morgantown, WV, another riot broke out because WVU upset Baylor. I doubt there is much cell phone footage from WVU, because they had all been drinking since 7-8 am and their batteries were probably all dead or they were too drunk to use them.
Assholes.
At any rate, via Jezebel, here are otters eating sushi from chopsticks:
Otters are my favorites, even though I don’t really like the whole concept of a zoo (although if you go to a circus you are dead to me). When I was a kid I used to spend hours at the Good Zoo with my family, and the only thing that broke up my routine of being a little obnoxious bastard trying to drive my parents into an early grave was the otters. I could spend hours watching them. In fact, I did. And still am.
*** Searches for otter screensaver ***
Baud
Yeah, the liberal Internet is having a field day.
Somewhat OT, Zander and Booman have posts up which pretty much explain why Grimes can’t say she voted for Obama.
wmd
You could use one of these wall papers for a screen saver. e.g. http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/-/m/images/wallpaper/southern-sea-otter_d-medium-hd.jpg
Joel Hanes
Long ago, one of my favorite blogs was “Respect for Otters”
shelley
We need a Pumpkin Czar!
Professor
I blame Obama.
WereBear
If there’s someone out there who can read Ring of Bright Water and not cry…
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Joel Hanes: There’s a bar in Minneapolis called the You Otter Stop Inn.
shelley
@Professor: And Acorn!
Gex
Last spring, the kids at the U of MN rioted both when the Gophers hockey team won a game that got them into the Frozen Four, then rioted when the Gophers lost in the next game. First of all, sports aren’t worth rioting over. Second of all, you should only get to riot in one of those two cases.
Karen in GA
I have otters tattooed on my left arm. Now that’s love.
Speaking of cute, Iggy asks for your vote, in the way only Iggy can.
I think we might actually have a fighting chance here — and a supermarket gift card would come in handy after the vet bills and the month’s supply of chew treats to keep him occupied in the crate.
He’s Iggy the Wonder Schnauzer, and he approved this message.
? Martin
I hear you, however they are rapidly becoming the last refuge for endangered species, and their mission is changing accordingly. Every zoo that we’ve worked with has programs specifically for protecting/breeding/and expanding population that you can contribute to. They need funds so they can maintain diets and exchange animals with other zoos to diversify genetic lines.
So, focus on that aspect of your local zoo – they’re a rescue for non-domestic animals. Throw money at that part of their mission. Just ignore the commercial aspects of them.
Violet
I knew it would come to this. People can only handle so much Pumpkin Spice.
Elizabelle
@Karen in GA:
GOTV for Iggy. Getting in practice there?
Vote 301. He iz cute.
Violet
@Karen in GA: I voted for Iggy already today. I was vote number 299. Let’s keep those votes coming! Poor Iggy can use a doggy treat after his heartworm treatment.
beltane
I’m just bitter there’s no footage of the Palin family riot. The FSM is not a merciful god.
? Martin
I have to admit, the ‘white culture of violence’ trolling is tremendously fun because is so goddamn easy. Did it to my mom on the phone this morning.
eemom
Another point in the soulmates column, Cole. Hate zoos, never took my kids to them…..animal-exploiting circuses are off the charts despicable.
Also too, you should adopt an otter.
KG
What happened in NH wasn’t a riot. It was just some unruly kids getting out of hand. We know this to be true because they are college age white people
WereBear
@Karen in GA: I am WereBear, and I have voted for Iggy :)
The site has been moved over! I cannot remove the testing info from my hosts file and so I don’t know which one I’m looking at! And there’s still problems!
It’s a good thing I decided to keep my cool and be patient three weeks ago, because a) this thing is moving into its fourth non-fab week and b) it’s not like I have any control over the process.
I think my new hosting company has been awesome so it could have been far more excruciating than it now, in fact, IS.
If anyone has a few minutes, can they go to wayofcats.com/blog and see if it works for them? Thanks!
Amir Khalid
I was hoping to see otters handling the chopsticks themselves to eat sushi. I am disappoint.
Amir Khalid
@Karen in GA:
Do they count votes from abroad?
JPL
@Professor: I have to agree because if Mitt were President, there would be no riots.
Tenar Darell
@Karen in GA: Did my daily vote this morning. I love that picture of Iggy with your submission.
Mike in NC
@KG: Can we call this “Good news for Scott Brown”?
Violet
@WereBear: Your link goes to balloon-juice. I highlighted it in your comment, googled it and went from there. The link is to the blog and the top post is “Emergency” and I can see your donation thermometer thing on the right.
Edit: Okay, now your link is right. Hmm.. Weird.
JPL
@beltane: According to the police report, the homeowner asked someone to video tape the disagreement but then called the next day and said there really wasn’t one. I hope that a copy was made before they sold it to the Palins.
Tenar Darell
@WereBear: iPhone 5 in Chrome, ios7.1.2, top post is the one title “Emergency.” Loads fine. Very minimalist, with just a top of screen picture of green leaves.
WereBear
@Violet: Thanks, Violet, I must have done something wrong and now I can’t edit. Sigh.
Your info is valuable… it means something has not yet migrated the way it should. But today is Sunday and things might be different tomorrow.
How’s things with you? I do have a backup… my troubles are not that big a deal in the long run.
MattF
If you’re using a mac, the canonical set of screensavers is here:
http://www.jwz.org/xscreensaver/download.html
Over 200 screensavers including bouncing cows, flying toasters, plumber’s nightmares, various high-dimensional geometric forms doing impossible rotations, etc. and so on.
Tree With Water
“Cheney says that he and his doctor, cardiologist Jonathan Reiner, turned off the device’s wireless function in case a terrorist tried to send his heart a fatal shock. Years later, Cheney watched an episode of the Showtime series “Homeland” in which such a scenario was part of the plot”.
The republican party is led by drama queens, measured by their talents to deceive and inflame the rank and file.
Rule-or-ruin drama queens.
Violet
@WereBear: The link is right now. Maybe something wrong with my computer. I don’t know. I did Control F5 to make sure it wasn’t reading cache. Still see the same thing.
WereBear
@Tenar Darell: Thanks much. Thing is, I went in and edited it so that Emergency should be no longer showing!
The edits are coming from outside the house!
So I must have visited an alternate Universe.
WereBear
When someone is obsessed with the idea that the whole world wants to kill them… they might want to consider WHY that is so.
Besides which, I do think of the Cheney administration as The Terrorists’ Best Friend.
MattF
@Tree With Water: Funny how cruelty and cowardice go together. Actually, not so funny.
Suzanne
When I was a junior in college at the University of Arizona (bear down), I got caught in a riot when the Cats lost the NCAA basketball championship game. It sucked and it was stupid, and I ran over a mile, barefoot, to get away from the cops. Who shot someone’s eye out.
I may or may not have flashed my boobs.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@WereBear: Your site seems to be blogging down the ‘tubes successfully. :-)
Cheers,
Scott.
MattF
@Suzanne: One of those “Pay no attention to what anyone says I did” sorts of situations.
WereBear
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: Thanks, Scott.
Problem is, it seems to be the wrong site :)
I knew my site had issues… so I do think I picked the right hosting company considering they have not thrown me out into the digital street.
And please, everyone, GET BACKED UP.
This has been a Public Service Announcement.
JPL
West Virginia sure has lots of left over sofas. Maybe next time there will concentrate on the cars left to rot, in the front yards.
raven
@Suzanne: Lute was a dick.
mai naem
@beltane: I believe there is one out there and the Palins either bought the phone and copies or threatened whoever had it to get it. It is unbelievable to me that even in Alaska at a drunk brawl somebody didn’t have a phone and start recording. It was a cul-de-sac with neighbors out there not just people at the party.
Bystander
When I saw the Keene thing on tv this morning, I couldn’t help but think of how different the coverage would have been if those kids weren’t so obviously above reproach.
My favorite dive bar name belongs to a joint in Port Jervis, NY: Dad’s Change of Pace.
Ultraviolet Thunder
I recently read some statistics about drinking by young people. It’s been in steady decline, especially among underage kids, since at least 1980. Underage drinking today is a fraction of what it was 30 years ago and college age drinking has fallen sharply.
Having been at a Big 10 University in the ’70s I can say that was the only direction it was possible for it to go.
But there will always be reckless assholes. And in our age of instant media they will get attention. But proper perspective says this is actually less of a problem than it used to be.
Adam Lang
Otters!
When I’m feeling at my lowest, I get in the car and drive down to Monterey and Big Sur and go see all the otters. They’re next to impossible to get good pictures of (evidence) but they’re adorable.
Karen in GA
@Amir Khalid: I believe so. I think residence only matters if you’re entering the contest.
Elizabelle, Violet, WereBear, Tenar Darell (not linking because moderation hell): thank you so much!
And WereBear, congrats on the progress with the new site location.
My husband is free to sit with Iggy for a while today (long hours at work and father in nursing home an hour away means he doesn’t get much free time at home). I’m actually leaving the house this afternoon!
Provider_UNE_AndPlayersToBeHatedLater™
@MattF:
I have always been something of a “cat whisperer”, the guy caught petting the beast that lets no one touch it, turning semi feral cats etc. Wrangling them when necessary…generally speaking having a good handle on the feline in general.
When i first read way of cats, i was blown away, you are a fucking sensei of the ways. I actually learned a great deal from you and always enjoy the stories.
BRAVO!!!
…
greg
Otters have been known to eat the trout hanging from the stringer tied to a wading angler’s belt. I’m a mostly C & R fly fisher, but I shake my fist at otters in a trout stream when I see them. Not that they’re doing anything wrong, but hey, those are my fish! :-)
Same thing with kingfishers. I once spent 20 minutes creeping on a nice rising brookie along the bank, only to have a kingfisher swoop down just before I got in casting range and spear it. Heck, the fish was too big for the bird!
Why do animals not realize that my pleasure trumps their ecosystem? (this is snark, in case you don’t get it. Unfortunately, it it’s a real attitude too many people have).
Provider_UNE_AndPlayersToBeHatedLater™
Btb the site loaded fine for me as well.
Emerald
Hey waiddaminnit! Don’t go dissing zoos! There are zoos and there are zoos.
Mo the Baby River Otter is in the Oregon Zoo! Rachel went crazy over him last week. He is doing great!
The San Diego Zoo and many, many others are not there to keep animals in prison. They’re there to save species, and also to save individual animals. I grant you, small roadside zoos are horrible. Don’t go to those.
But the major zoos are doing essential work all over the world to save species and habitats. It’s their main mission, and your entrance fees support those efforts. Plus, their animals are in excellent habitats with great enrichment. (And I believe it was the San Diego Zoo that came up with the formula for feeding baby pandas, too!)
Here’s a video of Mo the baby river otter: http://www.oregonzoo.org/news/2013/04/zoos-baby-otter-gets-swimming-lessons-mom
And here’s one to raising an endangered baby birdy at the St. Louis Zoo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljDYnImxvDI&feature=share
WereBear
The Wild Center in upstate NY has four river otters who are rescues and live in a naturalized habitat.
Thus, they are much happier than they would otherwise be, unable to manage in the wild and all.
Now, Sea World… don’t get me started.
Provider_UNE_AndPlayersToBeHatedLater™
@Provider_UNE_AndPlayersToBeHatedLater™: previous comment adressed to werebear.
WereBear
@Provider_UNE_AndPlayersToBeHatedLater™: Thanks so much!
Such validation keeps me supporting a massive time and money pit. But I do love helping the kitties, and so far the fans have been keeping the site afloat.
Perhaps once I get my book out things will come together.
Han
@Amir Khalid:
Of course. Women have had the right to vote in this country for several decades now.
(bad joke, I know, couldn’t help myself…)
Svensker
@Suzanne:
Ha ha ha.
Violet
@WereBear: Video consults! After mentioning that to you before I happened to see some intriguing-facial-hair-ed guy on morning TV who is some sort of cat whisperer. He was there to show cheap cat toy things you can make–like twine around a board or something for a scratching post. He apparently has a TV show. Know of him?
Edit: I found him. His name is Jackson Galaxy. http://www.animalplanet.com/tv-shows/my-cat-from-hell/bios/jackson-galaxy.htm.
opiejeanne
@Suzanne: Why were you barefoot?
WereBear
@Violet: Jackson Galaxy!
The West Coast ME :)
Or so Mr WereBear has it.
Absolutely, doing video consults! I’m thinking obtaining a gmail address just for the people who do not have one and using Google Hangouts, because it’s dang easy and doesn’t confuse me unmercifully like Skype information does.
Violet
@WereBear: You can also offer phone consultations. I saw on his website that he was offering a 15 minute phone consultation as part of his grand prize giveaway package for his book launch. In the bio I linked he talks about how he got started. This was interesting:
Is there a vet you could partner with in your neck of the woods? Maybe leave some cards for “cat consultations”? Or maybe work with a shelter and offer a free consultation with cat adoption. You’ll probably have to start free/low cost but then you can build your brand.
SWMBO
@Suzanne: If no one has pics, it never happened. If they do have pics, it was photoshop.
WereBear
@Violet: Oh, I’m sure I’ll have plenty of interest… and yes, those are all good ideas.
Thing about video is that I can see the cat, the human and cat body language, the home… things they don’t think to tell me. But it’s an evolving process.
Telling you, Violet… there will be a position for you in my growing organization!
SWMBO
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYwyJwiPVsA
This is why circuses should be illegal.
karen
@Violet:
I freaking love “My Cat From Hell!” Jackson Galaxy is a “cat behaviorist by day” and a rock guitarist by night, to paraphrase.
@Bystander: I went to camp in Port Jervis, NY, Cejwin I believe, Jewish sleep away camp.
@mai naem: I heard about a new tv show on MTV with late teen to early 20s people in Alaska. The show is “Slednecks” and that is what I will call the Palins onwards because it fits them so perfectly.
@Violet: Is that the sixth Spice Girl?
karen
Why is my post in moderation? Is it because of the name of the TV show? Should I have put it like “My Cat from Heck?”
WereBear
@karen: 4 links. The limit is 2.
Replying to someone = link
Woodrowfan
@Joel Hanes:
I forgot about that one. The writer was quite good.
Violet
@WereBear: Happy to help! I’ll be your business development consultant. What do those crazy tech kids call those sorts of things? Idea guru? Lol.
Violet
@karen: I’d never heard of him until I just happened to see a minute of TV at that time and he was on. It was that Hoda and Kathy Lee show. He handed Kathy Lee a cat and it kept clawing her. Pretty funny. She wasn’t happy.
I thought about that. If Pumpkin Spice is the lost Spice Girl, she’s the very, very white one.
Karen in GA
@Violet:
Which is why, no matter how much I love my dog, I’ll never stop being a cat person.
Suzanne
@opiejeanne: I was wearing flip-flops when the insanity broke out, and I started to run and lost my shoes in the crowd. The cops threw so much teargas that I needed to run, rather than go back to find them. It was awful. It was just a rowdy crowd until the cops showed up. Once the police started getting involved, everything went to hell.
@SWMBO: This was 2001. Before everyone had cameras all the time.
Another Holocene Human
New Hampster. It’s a dumping ground for assholes. (They’re known in NH as Massholes, so this is a two state solution.)
Another Holocene Human
New Hampshire actually has some truly beautiful state parks and still has some charming (?) old school New England hamlets but it also has Manchester/Concord sprawl full of assholes who want to work in Boston but avoid taxes and somehow conned Massachusetts into paying for a new highway for them so they can avoid taxes and avoid an enormous backup at the same time. Jeezus, NH ought to have paid for their shit, after all Mass and Maine, like they can afford it, bought UNH a motherfucking rail line so the mush can make it to Red Sox games!!!
Another Holocene Human
@Baud: God damn you, I actually looked at Zander’s blog, without mind-altering substances or an emergency stash of cyanide pills, damn you!!!
Halp, I want to sharpen sticks and make stabbity at mah brainz now!
fuckwit
I’m throwing this in here because I swore off politics last year (after decades of swearing AT politics), but I promised I’d poke my head up around election time, and I have… and am even more disgusted than 12 months ago.
You may recall that 12 months ago the fucking Rethuglicans shut down the government. I thought, this is ridiculous, there’s no point in watching anymore, these guys are obviously fools, everyone has to be able to see that by now, and they should all be going down hard next year, we’ll have Speaker Pelosi and probably Senator Grimes removing turtle man from politics forever.
Over those 12 months, my plan has been, that when someone sends me an email or calls me looking for me to volunteer, I’ll work the phones and GOTV like a pro, whatever work is needed. Until then, I’m tuning out.
But it’s now October. I’ve gotten exactly one (1) such email– from Al Franken who is mostly safe. However, over the last 12 months, I have deleted hundreads, maybe even thousands, of emails begging for money… some of those from OFA itself and quite dishonest “sign this petition” that are just moneybombs looking for donations. Nobody wants to win elections, they just want money. Or maybe they think money is the way to win elections (I have some experience in this area– and I can tell you that it is not).
Here we are, I just voted (deep blue district, I get to proudly tick the box for Nancy Pelosi but otherwise I’m just a spectator in what else is going on this year). I poke my head into Nate Silver to see what is going on. And… it looks like Democrats are prepared to LOSE the Senate. Not too surprising in a vacuum… it’s a tough calendar this year, and the Senate always tends to skew conservative anwyay. But still… WTF? After what the last two, four, six, 8, 10 , 12 years have shown? McConnel and his clowns aren’t sent packing?
I also don’t see any predictions about Speaker Pelosi. And I’m just stunned. The clowns who shut down the government, who are incapable of governing, who are actively out to destroy the federal government, are going to PICK UP seats this year.
There is something seriously, structurally wrong with American politics. I think the Karl Rove wet dream of a permanent Rethuglican majority has now become a reality.
The structural problems are, first of all, Citizen’s United and the corporate media that just got a huge profit boost from it. Secondly, redistricting. Thirdly, the Rethugs have found a way to capitalize on the ignorance of the American population– particularly that of the left– forgetting we have an actual representative republic and not an elected dictatorship: the CONGRESS makes the laws, the President only executes those laws, he’s not a dictator, and cannot and should not be expected to rule like one, and we also have state and local governments too. Midterms are everything… and the left trundles along thinking elections only happen every 4 years and only at a national level.
Fourthly, and I think I’ve come to peace with this at last, outside of American politics but in life in general, evil and greed and malice will almost always win. That’s just the nature of the game. Evil always has more money, more guns, more power, better connections, more motivation, and better propaganda. Evil always sells harder, makes shrewder choices, is more laser-focussed on winning. Occasionally, with heroic effort, good will score a win, and those are wonderful, precious moments, and we all cry and cheer and hug each other when they happen. But they are, almost by definition, rare. Failure is the norm and will always be the norm, for those playing for anyone else except Team Evil.
So there’s the state of the world (yes, world: there’s nowhere to go anymore, everwhere is becoming as fucked as us) in 2014.
Until we fix the above structural problems, the Permanant Rethuglican Majority is here to stay. It does not matter how much damage those fucking guys do. They will blame Obama, blame Democrats, and get away with it. There are no consequences. They will win anyway.
Another Holocene Human
@Gex:
I’m starting to think limiting college students’ access to LSD and pot was a big mistake.
Mix in repressive religion (cough Catholicism hack coff) and hoo baby.
PaulW
THE PUMPKIN SPICE MUST FLOW.
#PumpkinRiot
PaulW
#PumpkinRiot has already replaced #EbolaCzar as best name for a band in 2014.
g
When will white leaders denounce this culture of pumpkin-related violence?
Another Holocene Human
@Ultraviolet Thunder: The fact a lot of people don’t want to face is that a mob can riot stone cold sober.
It’s a part of human nature that is not pretty or pleasant.
Another Holocene Human
@fuckwit: Dude. I have gotten a bunch of calls asking me to do GOTV calls. I went to candidates’ websites that I liked and signed up. If you would have picked races you liked and signed up, the candidates with better GOTV outfits would have signed you up to do calls with predictive dialer, even out of state.
DKos denizens are doing out of state calls to SD for example, calls to KY, calls to NC, calls to GA….
The NATIONAL D party completely sucks at GOTV. That’s why BO had to make his own organization.
Don’t be a fuckwit. Go to Leticia Van der Putte’s website and sign up to do calls. Or whoever tickles your fancy.
Another Holocene Human
@PaulW: Win.
LT
When I lived in southern Oregon, outside a little town of 20,000 or so, I had the unbelievable luck of finding a river otter hangout – about two minutes drive from my home – TWO MINUTES! not at all exaggerating – in a creek fed pond and marsh system maybe 100 yards from I-5. Holy crap it made me so happy. I’d go hang out, watch them play. Big fuckers.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@WereBear:
The usual cause of things like that is delays in DNS propagation, I think. That is, your site was initially on one IP address (xxx.yyy.zzz.www) and when you changed providers your site (presumably) got moved to another IP address (xyx.yxy.zwz.wzw). The Domain Name System keeps track of which site is attached to which address, and it takes a while for those changes to “take” (a few hours in most cases).
A way to check if that is the cause is to get the new IP address from your new provider and use that directly.
HTH a little. Good luck!
Cheers,
Scott.
WereBear
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: Thanks! I’m sure you are right.
And, ironically, for fans, it might take their cache to age out, I understand.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@fuckwit: (sigh)
What a strange post.
It’s almost as if you expect everyone else to do the work, and if they don’t do it to your satisfaction, in the time frame you expect, you somehow think it’s productive to post about how surprised and disappointed you are.
You’re (presumably) an adult since you are able to vote.
If you’re surprised that Nancy isn’t going to be Speaker next year, well, maybe you shouldn’t tune out so much. E.g. this from 2010:
The Democrats require a wave election to take over from the Republicans. The Republicans only require a bare majority (and sometimes not even that)…
If you want Nancy to be speaker, you have to contribute to a wave. Not just show up to kibitz a few weeks before you vote. Get off your duff and work for the change you want.
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
mclaren
Well, thank goodness Keene NH has that SWAT team of snipers.
M. Bouffant
Here’s (0:48) of video of the police firing tear-gas at The Kidz:
WVU Is Crazy
Just like Cloverfield, except Morgantown,
MsSKWEsq
Iowa State University had to cancel VISHA spring festival because year after year the ISU hicks rioted in Ames.
JR in WV
I’m with you on those circuses that exploit “trained” animals, elephants, etc.
But Cirque du Soleil (we saw one of their touring shows) is really great. No animals, imaginative acts they try to tie into a plot line, athletes from all over the world.
Are you sure you hate them too?
I once wrote Oliver Luck, the AD for WVU, to ask why the school didn’t try to harness student energy into legal bonfires at pre game and post game rallies, with people on site to keep things organized and safe, like fire trucks on hand, bonfires of faux old couches, perhaps built by art students, etc.
He was polite, wrote back reasonably quickly, with a “nothing can be done” letter. At least it was grammatically correct, more or less. He is a lawyer as well as an ex-NFL Quarterback, after all.
But Nothing Can Be Done is such a final won’t consider any other answer but “we’re gonna use the cops and arrest anyone who torches a couch”
At my HS they built huge piles of broken pallets and old wooden junk for each home game. Various student clubs would “volunteer” to build one of the bonfires. These were nothing like the giant bonfire built at Texas A&M which collapsed while being built and killed a bunch of stupid engineering students, just a big pile of burnable fuel, maybe 12 feet high.
The band came and played fight songs, the cheerleaders acted like cheerleaders, etc.
I would think that at WVU they could do 6 or 8 of them, with small units of the band to play country roads and such, and firetrucks in case of someone falling and getting hurt. But if it was organized, there could even be metal rails to keep kids 20 feet away from a fire on heavy steel plates, like the ones they cover construction trenches with traffic running over them.
How could ti be worse than what they have now? Cops using tear gas in residential neighborhoods! It takes like 20 seconds to pull a couch out, cover it with anything flammable, and light it and run… what fun! Then watch the firemen and cops come and be all pissed off.
Hunter
@? Martin: Ditto. One thing I’ve noticed as a regular visitor to Chicago’s Lincoln Park Zoo (aside from the fact that the whole Zoo has been rebuilt over the past couple of decades to provide more amenable habitats for the animals) is the emphasis on endangered species. That’s even to the point where, the way the habitats are constructed, you can view the animals if they want you to. If they don’t feel like coming out, go on to the next animal. It’s a lot more about keeping the animals happy and healthy. (A Then-and-Now note: Lincoln Park Zoo started with the gift of a pair of swans from the New York Zoo. We now have a breeding pair of trumpeter swans that reliably produce young every year, which are then taken into a program that re-introduces them to the wild.)
This is not even counting the restoration of South Pond to a natural shoreline habitat, which is also part of the Zoo and a wildlife refuge.
And yes, there are otters. Regular North American otters, and African small-clawed otters. And yes, they come out to play when they feel like it.
Hunter
@Hunter: Footnote: South Pond also includes a breeding a sanctuary for black-crowned night herons, endangered in Illinois.