Namesakes, Too : ‘Zoo Freaks’ Have Friends by the Cageful

Just before the gates opened at the Los Angeles Zoo, tourists and children’s tour groups milled around outside the gates. But the “zoo freaks” dashed in.

“You don’t want to be late,” said Bud Price, a short, bandylegged 86-year-old in a plaid cap.

Price hurried off to walk the perimeter of the zoo grounds, which he does every day, while Hank Schappach, loaded down with camera equipment, headed for the aviary. Bernie Miller was off to see the orangutans, and Albert and Ann Miller went to see the gorillas.

They are a few of the dozen or so regulars at the Los Angeles Zoo. They call themselves “zoo freaks” or “zoo addicts” and go so often the animal keepers know them on sight, and often by name. Some of the keepers have even named baby animals after them.

And the zoo freaks, in turn, not only know the keepers but the names of many of the animals, as well as who’s ornery and who’s nice. One regular’s car license plate reads “C R LA ZOO.”

While studies show that members of the average household visit a zoo once every two years, some zoo freaks come seven days a week. Most are senior citizens, but some are middle-aged, coming on weekends or whenever they have the time. Some have been regulars for as long as 17 years.

And over the years they’ve learned, for example, that Tommy, the spot-nosed guenon--a kind of monkey--loves to look at himself in the mirror if you hold one up.

And that Evelyn the gorilla will throw kisses once you come often enough for her to recognize you. Gail the orangutan will stick her tongue out. And one of the younger chimpanzees, Andy, will clap his hands if you clap yours.

Every zoo in the country has such fans, Los Angeles Zoo spokeswoman Jean Brennan said. “Anyone in the zoo business comes to know the regulars,” she said. “They’re always interested in the animals and get to know them on a personal level, as individual personalities rather than as exhibits. They get to know them like you know your neighbors.”

“The animals do know them when they come,” said Theresa Prator, a 34-year-old keeper of the zoo’s orangutans. “The animals pick them out of the crowd, and they’ll follow them from one end of the exhibit to the other.”

Unlike other visitors, the zoo freaks have also learned the best spots, like the “Crow’s Nest.” That’s a little-known picnic place newcomers tend not to notice because it’s on a ramp above the main walk, partially hidden by trees across from the gorillas.

Around midday on weekends, many of the regulars gather there to eat lunch and compare notes on what they’ve seen.

“It’s like a little community,” said Ann Miller, who goes to the zoo three days a week, “a home away from home.”

She and her husband became regulars about five years ago after they retired from their interior decorating business. They learned about the animals by eavesdropping on guides as they gave tours to schoolchildren, and then by striking up conversations with keepers or other regulars.

Miller keeps her findings--including animals’ names, weights, heights and ages--in a red spiral notebook she carries with her.

Gorilla Kisses Having left the gorillas one recent morning, after Evelyn blew a kiss, the Millers headed toward the chimps. On the way, they stopped outside one quiet enclosure.

Other visitors walked by the exhibit, hardly giving it a glance, because a black animal, looking like a long-snouted pig and called a “Baird’s tapir,” was flopped on the ground, asleep.

But the Millers saw more, what they called “the odd couple.”

“One is a crane, one is a tapir,” Ann Miller said. Sure enough, not far from the sleeping beast, a black and white crane stood very still in the sunshine.

“They stick together,” Albert Miller said of the unlikely pair.

“He lost his mate,” she said of the tapir, “and they gave him another. But he threw her down the moat. He just wants the crane.”

Though they know as much as the zoo’s more than 300 volunteers, the regulars don’t volunteer to guide tours or work at the zoo.

“We sort of prefer to do it on our own,” said Bea Keane, who, along with her husband, Dick, has been coming every weekend for 17 years, rain or shine. She calls the excursions “our relaxation” and said most of the couple’s friends “are people we met at the zoo.”

A few regulars have gotten to know keepers well enough that baby animals have been named after them. Two of the ring-tailed lemurs are called Annie and Albertina, after the Millers, and Keane said a chimp named Bea is her namesake.

“She’s a horrible-looking thing because she’s plucked all her hair out,” Keane said.

Indeed, Bea was easy to pick out among the chimps as the Millers arrived at the exhibit because she had the least hair. On this day, Bea was carrying a baby chimp on her back.

“That’s not hers, she’s the aunt,” Ann Miller said. She and her husband started clapping their hands to attract the attention of Andy, the chimp who claps and does somersaults.

A group of children on tour stared more at Ann Miller than at the chimps as she ran up and down the fence of the exhibit, laughing and calling out, “Andy, Andy, come on, Andy!”

Andy clapped, but the children continued to stare, wide-eyed, at the 70-year-old woman on their side of the fence. Soon they shuffled away silently and Miller paused, laughing: “This place is so much fun!”

Soon Bud Price came along, having finished his walk around the perimeter, which took him through the hilly sections where the mountain goats and bighorn sheep are kept.

“We have to go with you one of these days,” Ann Miller told Price, a remark she often makes and laughingly admits she doesn’t mean. “What’s good up there?”

“There’s a little alpaca you might want to see,” Price said.

Soon they ran into Bernie Miller of Glendale (no relation) and Hank Schappach, who had spent the last three hours trying to take pictures of a colorful red-headed marsh bird. Miller, a retired 70-year-old Lockheed employee, is the one with the “C R LA ZOO” license plate.

Schappach, also a Glendale resident, said he had thought about getting a special plate too, but found other zoo freaks around the state had already taken “zoo fan” and others he asked for. “I think ‘zoo nut’ is not taken,” he said, but he wasn’t sure he wanted that one.