Columnist Susan Snyder: Neglected zoo deserves a look

Tuesday, May 16, 2000 | 7:58 a.m.

Susan Snyder's column appears Tuesdays and Sundays. Reach her at snyder@lasvegassun.com or 259-4082.

Despite the size of the average moving truck, newcomers tend to travel light.

For months -- years, even -- they can ramble around a new town without the heavy baggage of old politics and grievances that burdens long-timers.

They can visit a place like the Southern Nevada Zoological-Botanical Park and see it for what it is -- a decent little zoo in a city where "park" often means laying sod on whatever lot the developer couldn't sell.

The 2.5-acre zoo off North Rancho Drive houses 78 species of reptiles, mammals and birds and at least as many varieties of plants.

The tentacles of urban sprawl curl around every edge of the zoo that opened 20 years ago. Texas Station, visible in the distance, is a constant reminder of what drives Las Vegas and what doesn't.

"Look at Texas Station, and you'll see 1,000 cars a day in the parking lot. That's the reality," says Pat Dingle, the former North Las Vegas homicide detective who founded the zoo and remains its executive director.

Reality sets in every time Dingle wants to upgrade an animal habitat or add an animal. The zoo, criticized in the past for outdated displays, its animal care and empty cages, is run on a shoestring by a nonprofit foundation that relies on local support.

A tiny zoo is a tough sell in a town where exotic animals are displayed, paraded and taught to perform under the neon and glitter of one of the world's most famous thoroughfares.

Visitors won't get to hold a lion cub or see cats with color mutations being perpetuated here. They'll have to settle for an 18-year-old coyote that sleeps a lot or a pair of golden eagles that can't fly.

What they teach us about people makes up for what they lack in glamour.

The golden eagles were hit and injured by cars. The mule deer was orphaned as a baby when a car hit its mother. And the cougar, also orphaned, was a small starving cub when found near Battle Mountain.

Wildlife officers confiscated the alligator from someone who owned it illegally. The chimpanzee is a retired performer. And the pair of ostriches were donated by a woman whose hopes of making money by raising them didn't pan out.

The zoo's coyote is one of two female pups someone stole from their Mount Charleston den 18 years ago when they were not yet weaned. The person decided it was too hard to raise them and brought them to Dingle.

"It was like, do we take them or put them to sleep? You can't take them back (to the wild). That's all destroyed," he said. "But it's amazing how many people have lived here for years and have never seen one."

Human nature. People learn to ignore the things they can see every day. Dingle knows that.

"Most of Las Vegas doesn't know we're here," he said.

Maybe they do. But maybe they figure they already know everything about the zoo -- some of it not so positive and all it from the past.

The staff is starting an Explorer post in June for teens interested in animal careers. They're updating enclosures and expanding the reptile house. They've made changes. But people can't see them if they don't head out there for a look.

Maybe they simply carry too much baggage to make the trip.