Well, one day director of the St. Louis Zoo, George Vierheller said that he was bringing a reporter from the Globe-Democrat, a paper that no longer exist, to the zoo later in the morning, in the meantime, a keeper called me and said the new Darwin’s rhea that Mr. Vierheller managed to obtain from Germany has something wrong with its left eye, it’s all swollen. And because Mr. Vierheller wanted to show this reporter this bird and I was worried about it, I went running up to its area and here was this great big Darwin’s rhea strutting around with his left eye all swollen up. So I went into the enclosure and waltzed around with the Darwin’s rhea for a while, until I was able to get its back for the wings and swing around and throw it to the ground. This was quite a balletic effort. But I was not as balletic as the rhea, who as I swung him around and he swung around me, managed to catch his foot in my trousers. A few minutes later, I was sitting on top of the rhea on the floor with my trousers pulled down, examining its eye and the reporter came in with Mr. Vierheller. It’s not a common thing to see a curator sitting on top of Darwin’s Rhea with his pants down. But thank God she chose not to write about that.
