Anthony's Ark

The tiger walks back and forth, pacing the length of his cage, over and over again.
The kids with their noses pressed against the glass get bored and wonder off, screaming into the depths of the zoo.
“Man, he looks pissed off.” Says Anthony.
He does indeed. A sign beside the exhibit explains that a new female tiger has been acquired and the male is impatiently waiting to be introduced to her.
We move on to the lion enclosure, where a group of large males sit luxuriating in the comparative warmth of the Melbourne day.
“This is,” Anthony says, “When you see these guys in the wild, it’s hard to go back to zoos and see them in the same light.”
Anthony has traveled extensively, taking in Africa, Europe and South America, where Gary and I met him on the Tucan bus.
He is in Melbourne for the weekend, meeting up with people and with a couple of parties to attend.
The trip to the zoo is the result of us happening to be in the area after a rather bizarre and far-ranging search of Melbourne’s charity shops looking for something red for Anthony to wear to one of his parties.
“It’s fur, feathers or something red.” He explains of the party’s theme. One of the shops we find ourselves in, has at least one red feather boa, which ticks off two of the criteria immediately, but Anthony settles instead for a red shirt and a trip to the zoo.
While the tiger paces back and forth, the pygmy hippopotamus has found other outlets for his frustrations.
“What’s it doing to the barrel?” a kid in thick spectacles asks.
His father coughs.
“Playing footy with it, I think.” He tries.
The kid seems satisfied and gets bored.
“Never seen footy played like that before.” One of the other parents offers mildly.
“Might explain why your team are at bottom of the league,” says another.
Melbourne Zoo is an expansive place and a lot of care has clearly been put into the animals’ varying habitats – the new Elephant enclosures in particular seem rather extensive even though when we saw the elephants themselves they looked rather bored with the whole place.
There is still the uncomfortable sense of animals being locked up in cages while people gawp at them, however, and for all of Anthony’s concerns about their welfare, he is not above practicing his animal-impersonations skills quite vocally in heir presence.
In general, the animals themselves do not seem too impressed with his efforts, but the children – who swarm around the exhibits like crows around carrion – appear to be slightly awed by the huge guy doing monkey impersonations at the top of his lungs.
The monkeys’ don’t even seem to notice. Too busy as they are trying to make lots of little monkeys.
“Good god.” Says one parent steering their children away from a pair of copulating baboons, “Clearly something in the water here.”
As we leave the primate enclosure, a small familiar voice can be heard behind us. It’s the little kid with the glasses from before.
“So what footy team do they play for?” he asks.