Zoo Offers Soft Landing to Fallen Stars

They’ve had their moment of media glory. Now, many face extermination.

It might have been fun while the cameras were rolling, but the celebrities of the animal kingdom still confront a basic problem: What’s to be done with a bear or a mountain lion that can’t be returned to the wild?

Even media stars such as Samson the hot tub bear aren’t adopted by individuals, and large zoos rarely have room for more common, nonexotic wildlife, no matter how famous.

Enter the Orange County Zoo.

With big plans for expansion and a penchant for wildlife preservation, the zoo has stepped forward in recent years to save dozens of creatures--famous or not--from being put to sleep.

Two of the famous freeway foxes can be found here, along with brown pelicans that survived a 400,000-gallon oil spill outside Huntington Beach in 1990, and a homeless mountain lion cub whose mother was shot by a rancher in Northern California.

And the biggest headline-grabber is about to arrive. Next month, a $150,000 exhibit under construction will be ready for Samson, the black bear that drew national attention in late 1994 when he was photographed climbing out of a swimming pool in the San Gabriel Valley.

“Samson was quite a story, but he was still running out of places to go,” said county parks manager Tim Miller, who oversees the zoo. “But then, most of these animals have some kind of story behind them.”

Samson will be a kind of poster animal for the guiding philosophy that the zoo has embraced for the last five years since manager Forrest deSpain took over day-to-day operations.

“Why are all these animals coming down from the hills?” deSpain asked. “Samson’s plight represents the plight of all the animals that are coming into contact with man. By [Samson’s story] being so public, we can demonstrate the problem to people so much easier.”

The zoo’s mission is to educate Orange County residents about the local species they are likely to come across. For that reason, all of the 45 species and 125 animals found in the zoo are indigenous to the southwest United States.

“This kind of zoo is important because it shows people how to live with the wildlife that’s in their backyard,” said Pam Swift, a wildlife veterinarian with the state Department of Fish and Game in Sacramento. “It’s the garbage [foraging] bears and the mountain lions you have to live with, not the rhinos.”

The county zoo is on three acres in Irvine Regional Park in the city of Orange and represents the rolling, shrub-enshrouded terrain native to much of Southern California. Plans call for the zoo to expand to eight acres.

The zoo was built in 1985 around 200 live oak trees, and care has been taken to weave a landscape of native plants around the exhibits and cages. About 350,000 people visit the zoo annually.

“It really feels like the outdoors here,” said Gena Rehbock, a former San Clemente resident who was visiting the zoo while on vacation from her home outside of Chicago. “It fits in with the foothills around us, and it’s so much less crowded than the San Diego Zoo. I love it.”

Walking past rows of cages, deSpain singled out animal after animal that had been abused or hurt in some manner by contact with humans.

There was Woody the bobcat, who was being raised illegally in a local backyard and was confiscated by authorities. Next to the brown pelicans from Huntington Beach was a gull that had a wing amputated after getting tangled in a fisherman’s line. As for the freeway foxes, they received media coverage a few years ago when work crews discovered them, delaying the opening of the Costa Mesa Freeway extension.

The list goes on, from the golden eagle shot in the wing by a hunter to a roadrunner with a damaged leg. None could be released, and all faced euthanasia if state authorities and wildlife experts couldn’t find them a home, deSpain said.

“If I have a choice of exhibiting an animal that is unreleasable and using one that could otherwise be surviving in the wild, I’ll use the unreleasable one,” he said. “These are species that are all around us, and many people don’t realize they are here.”

DeSpain must turn away many more animals than he takes in. But the park’s expansion plans might help remedy that problem.

Besides Samson’s new digs, the zoo is putting the final touches on a mountain lion exhibit. Work has started on a towering outdoor aviary for eagles and soon construction will begin on a pen for bison and, eventually, a large pond for water-faring birds.

“We’re nothing like the San Diego Zoo; we can’t compete with them,” Miller said. “But I drive into this park at 6:30 a.m. and I see coyotes running past.

“This zoo is a picture of Orange County environment,” he said. “This is where we live.”