Volunteer Worker a Zoo Star

Gene Arias is the Los Angeles Zoo’s unofficial handyman and jack-of-all-trades.

On a recent day, the 52-year-old Sherman Oaks resident was helping prepare a new exhibit for the endangered golden lion tamarins. Seems a colony of honeybees had forced the South American monkeys out of their old digs. But Arias’ newly hung network of vines and branches is sure to help the primates’ transition next month to a new location.

“It’s just like a little highway for them,” Arias says proudly of the branch and twig walkway the monkeys will use for fun and exercise.

Arias began volunteering for zoo duties five years ago on a whim. Since then, he has shown up in his khaki shorts and mud-colored T-shirt ready to work on whatever needs mending, moving or redesigning.

“I think he spends more time at the zoo than I do,” zoo spokeswoman Judy Shay said.

At many exhibits within the zoo’s 113 acres in Griffith Park, Arias’ handiwork is apparent.

Over at the aquamarine exhibit, for instance, two river otters have much to slither on, swim around and sun on, thanks to Arias. Picture a naturalistic jungle gym for the web-footed set, complete with a hammock for lounging, a heap of branches atop a lava rock for climbing, even what Arias calls a “Tom Sawyer” raft for more otter fun and frolic.

“They really love the tunnel, too,” said Arias, pointing to a log that he spent a day hollowing out.

The refurbishment of the exhibit took Arias a few months. He was so proud of it, he gave it a test run before the otters arrived.

“I got into the water to make sure that everything was exactly as it should be,” he recalls. “Boy, was it cold.”

Arias is equally proud of the sea lions’ Jacuzzi-like “bubble machine” he fashioned for their watering hole exhibit.

“It’s the simple little things,” he said of his PVC pipe design. “They love it. They swim over the bubbles--back and forth--so, I’m sure it feels good to them.”

Arias is never sure what he’ll be doing from day to day. “They just see me and ask me to do something and I do it,” he said.

His job shooting head shots of television executives or stills from local television productions allows him time off during the day to help out wherever he can.

Sometimes that means looking for fallen branches for monkey perches, fixing a broken cage hinge or building a water mist system to help a king cobra shed its skin.

“He’s a huge help,” said Lindsey Kocincki, a zoo animal keeper who specializes in New World primates. “There are hundreds of things that wouldn’t get done without him.”

Of all his work, Arias is perhaps proudest of tracking down historical statues this spring for the zoo’s planned new entranceway.

Zoo Director Manuel A. Mollinedo sent Arias on a quest to find the statues that had greeted visitors to motion picture pioneer William Selig’s zoo east of downtown Los Angeles.

But when that zoo closed in the mid-1940s, the 3,000-pound elephant and 800-pound lion statues were lost.

Arias used clues from a recently published book on Los Angeles that mentioned the possible whereabouts of the statues. The rest was all good detective work and being in the right place at the right time.

After two months, Arias found the statues on an Ontario homeowner’s front lawn and at a storage facility in Fontana. He was able to persuade the statues’ owners to donate them to the Los Angeles Zoo. The new entryway is scheduled to be unveiled within five years.

“Not only does [Arias] help the animals, he sees the big picture,” Mollinedo said. “He is a man of many talents.”

Next, Arias will remodel a black howler’s cage with new perches made from fallen branches.

“How you doing sweetie pie?” he coos to the monkey while grabbing her small hand. “Who’s the prettiest girl in the zoo?”

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