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From the 1,000-pound male bison to the Madagascar hissing cockroach, more than 400 creatures representing 70 species were brought together to spend their lives in the naturalistic settings carved out for them at the Queens Zoo in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park.
So for officials faced with the possible closing of the zoo on July 1 due to city budget cuts, the daunting prospect of finding new homes for the animals, and the logistics and bureaucracy involved in transporting them, loom as major challenges.
The 12-acre enclave of trees and shrubbery that opened in 1968 was modernized in the early 1990s to accommodate "hoof stock" (elk, llamas, bison, cows, donkeys) and birds (including bald eagles, cranes, owls, thick- billed parrots) that attract more than 250,000 two-legged visitors each year.
Zoo director Robin Dalton, while fielding walkie-talkie calls from employees assisting visitors and advising a maintenance worker how to deal with a plumbing problem in an animal enclosure, talked recently about the difficulties of finding new homes for the menagerie.
If a decision were made to close the zoo, it would cost more than $4 million to shut down, Dalton said. The city allocates about $3.5 million annually for the zoo's upkeep.
Other zoos are not rallying to find room for the animals. There is no species at the zoo that is sought after. "There's nothing of that sort," said Dalton. "Zoos around the country are having their own problems."
Some Queens residents are willing to open their homes to the animals, but their offers have to be refused. One woman suggested her backyard swimming pool for the zoo's four sea lions.
But Dalton said, "They can't go into a swimming pool. It's an 85,000-gallon pool they're in. And the sides of the pool have to be rounded so the sea lions don't hurt themselves."
Others want to take two orphaned baby mountain lions given a home at the zoo, which specializes in North American animals. Dalton said such well-intentioned people "have no concept of what's involved. The mountain lions need a naturalistic habitat" - about 7,500 square feet of space - "where they can stay dry, eat and go inside at night," he said....