keepers stayed late to watch over him. The keeper would put on her wetsuit—at this point, almost all of the Florida mammal staff was female—and reach through the black water until she found the calf. Loo weighed barely sixty pounds and was relatively light, so the keeper pulled him onto her lap, cradled him in her arms, and tried to get him to take the bottle. If even a few ounces of the formula reached the calf’s stomach, it would increase the odds.
The feedings continued night and day for weeks. Virginia and the rest of her staff would not give up. Though it was not their habit to say such things out loud, they knew all too well that they were Loo’s only hope. At daybreak, as they held the calf in the water and tried again, they could hear the rest of the zoo rousing to life around them. If it was quiet enough, they could even make out the faint calls of the adult manatees in the nearby pools when they walked down into the underground viewing area. The vocalizations were like the chirping squeak of a dolphin, only more quiet; manatees are sometimes described as “soft-spoken.” Scientists believed that the species used the sounds to express fear or anger, to stay in contact with one another, to keep their calves from straying.
The high-pitched calls were both beautiful and enigmatic. It was easy to wonder what the sirens were communicating at that moment, what the calls sounded like to them rippling through the water. Whatever the message, perhaps Loo was listening too.
Summer was over, allegedly. According to the calendar, it was now October. But a stroll through Lowry Park still felt like a tour through the inner chambers of a giant kiln. By midmorning, an invisible shroud of heat settled over the grounds. It reflected off the walkways that curved past babirusa digging with their tusks and muntjacs darting in the shadows, and shimmered over the placid green water of the moats surrounding the ring-tailed lemurs and the Colobus monkeys, and burned in the scrub pines where the zoo’s lone red wolf patrolled the fence at the edge of his exhibit, avoiding eye contact.
The inferno did not slow the stream of cars and minivans pouring into the front parking lots. Observing each new wave of visitors was like standing before an exhibit that endlessly renewed itself. The species on display, however, was hardly soft-spoken. Elementary schoolchildren tumbled out of buses, fidgeting and scratching without shame, the girls quickly bunching into whispered huddles as they reinforced old alliances or established new ones, the boys elbowing and pushing as they maneuvered for position in their secret hierarchies. Adult couples smooched and locked hands and giggled loudly at coded allusions, public proof of their private pair-bond and a warning against interference from any potential reproductive competitors. In biological terms, the signals they were sending could not have been more clear. Walking toward the ticket windows, they rubbed each other’s shoulders and brushed dirt and picked lint off each other’s shirts and ran their fingers through each other’s hair—all classic precoital grooming behavior. (Possibly postcoital.) Mothers and fathers lingered at the rear of their Expeditions and Escalades—glittering emblems not just of status but of their determination to protect the future of their genetic line—and unloaded strollers built like tanks, designer diaper bags overflowing with juice packets and sanitary wipes, and enough sunblock to slather an army. In their car seats, their toddlers waited to be waited upon, spoiled like so many young primates, whining and kicking their legs like tiny despots impatient for their retinue to convey them forward.
If the visitors were listening, they could already detect the roar of Eric, the male Sumatran tiger. Possibly he was restless, eager for his turn in the exhibit. Definitely he was sexually frustrated, since his attempts to court Enshalla had so far been met only with
The feedings continued night and day for weeks. Virginia and the rest of her staff would not give up. Though it was not their habit to say such things out loud, they knew all too well that they were Loo’s only hope. At daybreak, as they held the calf in the water and tried again, they could hear the rest of the zoo rousing to life around them. If it was quiet enough, they could even make out the faint calls of the adult manatees in the nearby pools when they walked down into the underground viewing area. The vocalizations were like the chirping squeak of a dolphin, only more quiet; manatees are sometimes described as “soft-spoken.” Scientists believed that the species used the sounds to express fear or anger, to stay in contact with one another, to keep their calves from straying.
The high-pitched calls were both beautiful and enigmatic. It was easy to wonder what the sirens were communicating at that moment, what the calls sounded like to them rippling through the water. Whatever the message, perhaps Loo was listening too.
Summer was over, allegedly. According to the calendar, it was now October. But a stroll through Lowry Park still felt like a tour through the inner chambers of a giant kiln. By midmorning, an invisible shroud of heat settled over the grounds. It reflected off the walkways that curved past babirusa digging with their tusks and muntjacs darting in the shadows, and shimmered over the placid green water of the moats surrounding the ring-tailed lemurs and the Colobus monkeys, and burned in the scrub pines where the zoo’s lone red wolf patrolled the fence at the edge of his exhibit, avoiding eye contact.
The inferno did not slow the stream of cars and minivans pouring into the front parking lots. Observing each new wave of visitors was like standing before an exhibit that endlessly renewed itself. The species on display, however, was hardly soft-spoken. Elementary schoolchildren tumbled out of buses, fidgeting and scratching without shame, the girls quickly bunching into whispered huddles as they reinforced old alliances or established new ones, the boys elbowing and pushing as they maneuvered for position in their secret hierarchies. Adult couples smooched and locked hands and giggled loudly at coded allusions, public proof of their private pair-bond and a warning against interference from any potential reproductive competitors. In biological terms, the signals they were sending could not have been more clear. Walking toward the ticket windows, they rubbed each other’s shoulders and brushed dirt and picked lint off each other’s shirts and ran their fingers through each other’s hair—all classic precoital grooming behavior. (Possibly postcoital.) Mothers and fathers lingered at the rear of their Expeditions and Escalades—glittering emblems not just of status but of their determination to protect the future of their genetic line—and unloaded strollers built like tanks, designer diaper bags overflowing with juice packets and sanitary wipes, and enough sunblock to slather an army. In their car seats, their toddlers waited to be waited upon, spoiled like so many young primates, whining and kicking their legs like tiny despots impatient for their retinue to convey them forward.
If the visitors were listening, they could already detect the roar of Eric, the male Sumatran tiger. Possibly he was restless, eager for his turn in the exhibit. Definitely he was sexually frustrated, since his attempts to court Enshalla had so far been met only with
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