For Docent, It’s Time for Tales of Animal Magnetism

This is about the time of year when Linda Countryman volunteers to teach her favorite subject: sex.

Countryman explains the birds and the bees--and the monkeys, giraffes and snakes--as a volunteer docent at the Los Angeles Zoo in Griffith Park.

“In the spring, we do give some X-rated tours,” says the 65-year-old Hollywood resident. “It’s unavoidable.”

Countryman, a former motion-picture production secretary and game-show talent booker, has been helping at the zoo since 1969. Earlier this month, she received an award for 12,000 hours of volunteer work.

Through observation and reading, she has learned enough zoology to deliver papers at academic conferences. Her latest was titled “Plants and Animals: A Tale of Co-Evolution.”

“It’s frankly an ego trip, but it’s a lot of fun,” she said.

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RACE LINEUP CHANGES: The runoff for the 5th District City Council seat was supposed to be a race between two contenders: Barbara Yaroslavsky and Mike Feuer. But now Tom Hayden is getting into the act.

The Democratic state senator got involved after Yaroslavsky’s campaign propaganda accused Feuer of supporting “Tom Hayden’s proposal to limit homeowners’ property rights.”

Hayden’s gripe: There really is no “proposal to limit homeowner’s property rights.” When pressed, Yaroslavsky said that her charge, contained in a mailing to Republican voters, refers to the senator’s past efforts on behalf of rent control.

Although Hayden’s support for tenants’ rights in Santa Monica is no secret, he insists that he never authored any proposal that would impinge on homeowners’ rights.

And he is irked at being used in the City Council race--so irked that he has sent several letters to Yaroslavsky demanding an apology.

He’s still waiting.

Meanwhile, he’s been sending a staffer to confront Yaroslavsky at public appearances.

At a recent forum in Westwood, Hayden’s researcher, Rocky Jaramillo Rushing, stood up in front of 60 or so members of the audience and asked Yaroslavsky to explain herself and publicly apologize to Hayden.

She declined, saying that although she has “tremendous respect” for the senator, she sees him as “the godfather” of rent control.