Zoo to Continue Backstage Tours

Last October, a young woman stood at the edge of the wire door to the enclosure of Komo, one of the zoo’s two Komodo dragons, and asked to go in for a closer look.

While a reptile keeper and the zoo director watched, the woman, whose mother, Myra Wildhorn, had donated a quarter of a million dollars to build new habitats for the giant lizards, spent an uneventful few minutes inside the enclosure.

“The monitor never moved from the corner,” said Zoo Director Manuel Mollinedo. “He followed her with his eyes.” So the only thing unusual about the reptile house visit of Sharon Stone and her husband, Phil Bronstein, the executive editor of the San Francisco Chronicle, was that it went horribly awry.

“I think we showed poor judgment,” Mollinedo said. He now must approve all special visits, and those guests will be required to sign a waiver of liability.

But one thing will not change. The zoo will continue to conduct its behind-the-scenes tours, which are a crucial fund-raising tool.

“With most of the donors who go behind the scenes, we’re the aggressors,” said Mollinedo. “We’ll say: ‘Why don’t you come out to lunch, we’ll talk to you about what we’re doing, we’ll take a behind-the-scenes tour.’ ”

Celebrity interest is especially valuable. “With someone as high-profile as Sharon Stone, it’s probably worth more to us just to have her involved with the zoo,” Mollinedo said. Two weeks ago, Shaquille O’Neal bottle-fed a baby giraffe in the animal nursery.

The zoo’s fund-raising arm, the Greater Los Angeles Zoo Assn., raised $5.5 million last year. There are usually several campaigns underway to improve or rebuild animal habitats. Wildhorn’s donation will help pay for new Komodo dragon habitats, and allowed her to name the 4-year-old males, Komo and Modo.

During Bronstein’s visit last Saturday, the reptile keeper made an impromptu decision to allow the newspaperman to enter the 5-foot-high cross-hatched wire door leading to Komo’s 14-foot by 9-foot lair. Komo, who is 7 feet long from nose to tail and weighs about 55 pounds, is expected to soon outgrow its cramped quarters. When Bronstein walked into the enclosure, the lizard eyed his white gym shoes and began to approach.

“Someone made the comment, ‘The animal thinks your shoe is a white rat,’ ” said Mollinedo, who was not there but has talked to the zoo staffers who were. Bronstein took off his white shoes and white socks. He petted the lizard and was moving around the enclosure when the lizard’s teeth sliced into his toe, according to the account he gave his own newspaper.

The bite severed two tendons and injured his big left toe so badly that he needed reconstructive surgery. Bronstein, who was released from the hospital and is recuperating in a cast, is still taking antibiotics.

The lizard, meanwhile, has had its blood drawn, and cultures taken from almost every orifice. Its medical records have been faxed to attending physicians, as well as Stone’s representatives.

The keeper who allowed Bronstein in the cage “was pretty devastated--to the point where he was very emotionally distraught,” Mollinedo said. The director, who did not realize that Bronstein would be allowed in the enclosure, said he takes responsibility for what happened.

“We need to have behind-the-scenes tours, that’s a fact of life,” Mollinedo said. “Personally, I wish we could stop them.” Not because of the danger, he said, but because they consume so much staff time. But, he adds, “Our zoo needs to be rebuilt. We need the money. Potential donors want to be treated in a special way. It also gives us an opportunity to share with them why we need to build new exhibits.”

Tonight at the zoo’s annual fund-raising dinner, the Beastly Ball, donors will be asked to bid for the honor of naming a baby alpaca. Other items for sale include a private tour of the giraffe barn, and a chance to help feed and wash the elephants.

Most special tours are not so up close and personal. Rarely is a person in the same space with an animal.

Visits to the chimpanzee and orangutan habitats, for example, generally involve a tour of the area where the keepers feed or wash the animals or bed them down for the night. It’s a better view of the animals, but not close enough to touch.

There are some exceptions: baby animals being hand-reared in nurseries. Although visitors are never allowed to stand toe to toe with a giraffe--the animals can kick--special guests are occasionally allowed on a 5-foot-high ledge that abuts their enclosure. From that vantage point, you can pet a giraffe’s oily coarse hide and offer it some greens.

Veteran keeper Robin Noll never worries about a giraffe hurting a visitor. “I’ve never heard of a giraffe bite,” Noll said, affectionately scratching the side of 16-foot-tall Kito. “”They don’t have upper incisors.”

Sharp Teeth and Deadly Bacteria

But zoo officials made a miscalculation with its Komodo dragon, the world’s largest lizard, which tears into its prey with sickle-shaped teeth. Even if an animal manages to escape those jaws, the deadly bacteria in the Komodo’s mouth usually finishes the job. The lizards start their lives dashing from hatched egg to a tree to avoid getting eaten by adult Komodos--even their parents.

The zoo’s Komodo dragons were a year old and a foot long when they were turned over to the zoo, recovered from a smuggler at Los Angeles International Airport. Now, the zoo has indefinite guardianship of the orange-eyed reptiles. They live on rats, chicks and quail.

“We had been allowing people to go in there, but they were much smaller,” Mollinedo said. The one that Bronstein visited, the zoo director said, “never charged anyone.”

In a Times story about the need for zoo improvements last December, Mollinedo said: “I worry every day that one of my keepers is going to get bitten by a poisonous snake, or a Komodo dragon. . . . The bite of a Komodo dragon is a death warrant.”

Although Mollinedo now denies using the phrase “death warrant,” he admits the Komodo’s bite can be lethal without antibiotic treatment.

When Stone called the fund-raising office requesting a visit with the Komodo dragons, Mollinedo agreed. But he said he had no idea anyone would end up inside their cage.

The celebrity couple were accompanied on their tour by a keeper, the zoo’s general curator and an official of the Greater Los Angeles Zoo Assn. Mollinedo was at his Los Feliz home painting shutters.

Stone Used Sock as a Tourniquet

When Bronstein pried the animal off his toe and escaped the enclosure, Stone used a sock as a tourniquet on his foot, according to Bronstein’s account in the Chronicle.

Mollinedo said his zoo staff administered first aid and called for paramedics. A firetruck and an ambulance arrived. Stone insisted Bronstein be taken to Cedars-Sinai Hospital, instead of the nearest trauma center.

“She was the one who was pretty much calling the shots,” Mollinedo said.

Mollinedo met Stone at the hospital’s emergency room. “I was apologetic, I asked if there was anything the L.A. Zoo could do,” Mollinedo said. “She was remarkably composed. She asked very good questions. She seemed very concerned about her husband. She said, ‘We’re not blaming the zoo, we’re not blaming anybody, we just want to make sure Phil is OK.’ ”

Since then, Mollinedo said, zoo staffers have made doctors treating Bronstein aware of the kind of bacteria the Komodo might be harboring.

A representative for Stone said Friday that she does not plan to sue the zoo.

Now, zoo officials just want to put the event behind them. Even the Komodo has had to readjust.

On his records posted beside his enclosure, the entry for Wednesday reads: “Vets took blood--a bit stressed.” Thursday’s entry, however, reads: “Acting normal 2day.”

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Komodo Fact Sheet

Claim to fame: World’s largest living lizard.

Population: 1,000 to 5,000

Commonly found: Indonesian islands of Komodo, Rintja, Padar and Flores

Length: Up to about 10 feet

Weight: Up to about 280 pounds

Diet: Deer, wild boar

Status: Endangered

Source: The Canadian Museum of Nature