A moving true story of American struggle.
Royal, Nebraska, population eighty-one—where the church, high school, and post office each stand abandoned, monuments to a Great Plains town that never flourished. But for nearly twenty years, they had a zoo, seven acres that rose from local peculiarity to key tourist attraction to devastating tragedy. And it all began with one man’s outsize vision.
When Dick Haskin’s plans to assist primatologist Dian Fossey in Rwanda were cut short by her murder, Dick’s devotion to primates didn’t die with her. He returned to his hometown with Reuben, an adolescent chimp, in the bed of a pickup truck and transformed a trailer home into the Midwest Primate Center. As the tourist trade multiplied, so did the inhabitants of what would become Zoo Nebraska, the unlikeliest boon to Royal’s economy in generations and, eventually, the source of a power struggle that would lead to the tragic implosion of Dick Haskin’s dream.
A resonant true story of small-town politics and community perseverance and of decent people and questionable choices, Zoo Nebraska is a timely requiem for a rural America in the throes of extinction.
Whew. I was going to write a big thing and then I wasn’t going to say anything. Now I’m going to try to piece together some thoughts.
First off; years ago I volunteered in a wildlife refuge. I met a wonderful friend there and we tried our best to do everything we could for the animals every day. The owner was off her rocker and we stayed as long as we could to help those wonderful animals. In the end, we had to leave and most of those animals were killed to get shiny new ones. I can’t even with that any more.
This story reminds me of a lot of horrible things that have gone wrong in zoos, circuses, so called refuges and other, more disgusting things wildlife is put through.
A man, Dick, had a dream. He watched Jane Goodall and wanted to go to Africa and learn all about chimps. He thought his dreams were going to come true when he was invited to go intern a bit with Dian Fossey. Y’all might remember the movie, "Gorilla’s in the Mist" where Sigorney Weaver played Dian. Unfortunately, this didn’t come to pass as Dian was murdered
He remembered her stories back in San Diego, so often making light of a grave situation; he’d even warned her, "those poachers are going to kill you someday," and she had admitted that, yes, her life was in danger, but she would return to Rwanda and continue her with nonetheless.
Side note: I always wanted to be a poacher hunter when I was little but that’s neither here nor there!
Jump ahead and Dick opened Zoo Nebraska in Royal; a tiny town with high hopes. Now it wasn’t the original name but I’m not going into all of that.
The board members eventually wore Dick down to where he had to leave. I mean he loved his chimp Reuben but the jerks that were on the board and other things wore him down.
He found a good couple to come take over but didn’t give them the skinny on how dire the place was financially and most importantly, the environments for the animals.
More devastating still, Reuben has lived alone since his arrival in 1986, despite so many warnings against it, and the public seemed either ignorant of or apathetic to the consequences. The Bakkens say the star of Antelope County compulsively tore out his own hair; that his thighs and forearms were nearly bald; and that he acted bored, depressed, frustrated, even psychotic.
I actually plan on reading the book Sandra wrote about Reuben.
The Bakkens were finally able to get better funding and bills paid; also acquiring some friends for Reuben. Jimmy Joe, whom they considered a "gentle giant." Tyler, whom starred in the 2001 family drama Race To Space alongside actor James Woods. And they acquired Ripley, who accompanied Jim Carrey in Ace Ventura (1994) and Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny Devito in Junior (1994). He also appeared in an episode of Seinfeld.
According to the Center for Great Apes, they become too dangerous to work with once they mature.
"The sad fact is that for decades these famous simian actors who made us laugh have ended up as experimental subjects in biomedical research, states their website. "Or in deplorable and shabby roadside zoos...or in tiny backyard cages... or in breeder compounds where their own babies are pulled from them to repeat the whole process of working young apes for entertainment."
Unfortunately, the Bakkens were forced out by idiots on the board. Then some other nice people try to help and they get pushed out. Then we are left with Junior who took over as Director and knew nothing about how to take care of primates, much less any other wildlife.
Everything went to hell in a hand basket with people volunteering and working with animals they never should have worked without proper training in anything.
This ultimately resulted in the apes getting out and killed instead of a training system set in place with people that knew how to take care of this and use a tranquilizer gun!! Only Riley made it out alive as he managed to get back to the enclosure before being shot. Some say that’s where Reuben was heading before he was shot in the back.
Dick couldn’t understand why no one called him. He was devestated, even though he never came to visit, he never invisioned them being killed. He even watched the video and saw that Junior could have corralled them back to the enclosure instead of riling then up.
There were many complaints to the USDA to get the place shut down. Even the state senator, Ernie Chambers supported they be closed as he was an animal welfare advocate.
"I think that any license this outfit has should be revoked immediately," Chambers told the Lincoln Journal Star. "It’s regrettable that three animals had to die due to the stupidity of human beings.
I’m done. I can’t no more. 5 stars to the author for bringing this story to light.
Mel 🖤🐶🐺🐾
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