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I’ve always liked living with animals better than people, other than a couple men I’ve known. I was a cat person when I was younger with as many as four cats. Then when I got older I met the dog love of my life "Don Quixote", the blond bombshell, and learned what true companionship really is. My twelve pound dog "L.D.", for Little Dog, is right now sitting at my feet by this computer. He comes to work with me when I go into the computer room, and then takes off when I go to watch TV or sleep.

In Washington, D.C. I lived on Connecticut Avenue right up the street from the mighty National Zoo, which is under the Smithsonian Institution. Working part-time in law firms gave me the opportunity to do other things, like hanging out at the Zoo. It is a beautiful park. I started talking to all the animal keepers about their work. I remember going to the elephant house and found out the male elephant named "Dzimbo" had been shipped out of the National Zoo to some private game park and had died for no apparent reason within 6 months of his departure.

This story was told to me by Perry, who had been an elephant keeper his whole adult life. He was a small, quiet guy; had never been married; but was married to his beloved elephants. He had raised from an infant the orphan elephant Dzimbo. Dzimbo was now an adult, male African elephant and it seems American Zoo’s ability to control and properly contain such large animals was still being researched. That is, leaving Zoos to do whatever they wanted to do. The Seattle Zoo had been successful with their African elephants. The National Zoo also had two female Asian elephants.

With tears in his eyes Perry told me the story about loading the huge elephant onto the vehicle to take him away. Perry was allowed to accompany Dzimbo on his last trip. Perry paid for his own trip back to Florida a few months later to see his beloved elephant. He said it was very sad. They had put this friendly elephant out in an enclosure all by himself, away from the other "groups" of elephants. I think most of the other elephants were Asian elephants. Perry said Dzimbo loved seeing him, and they had a good visit. Perry was so sad to leave his elephant alone. Elephants are social animals, pack animals and form strong emotional bonds.

Within a few months, Dzimbo dies alone in this big field. They did an autopsy on him and found nothing wrong. Perry swears Dzimbo died of a broken heart.

The above story, plus numerous others, made me try to get some news organization to do a story. I contacted every newspaper, TV and publication in D.C., and nobody was interested. Some lady from People Magazine called me and just wondered how I could possibly say anything bad about the National Zoo because People Magazine had just done one of their fluff pieces about how everything was perfect at our National Zoo. People Magazine’s version of real life and real life are not always the same species.

I wrote up a vast amount of material on the National Zoo and made numerous Freedom of Information requests to the Smithsonian Institution.. I finally made contact with an appropriate avenue for publishing the zoo material called "The Federal Times". It is a weekly newspaper dealing with the problems of the Federal Government and read by Federal employees. The newspaper is very thorough and backs up everything with facts, facts, facts and the lawyer goes over all the words very carefully before publication.

I also went to the Fund for Investigative Journalism to apply for a small grant to support my zoo work I told the Journalism people that a simple fact of life in Washington, D.C. is that nobody does or says anything against the Smithsonian Institution. They don’t get invitations to parties and various perks. I told the representative of the Fund for Investigative Journalism I was doing the story whether I got any money from them or not. They gave me a few hundred dollars.

The Smithsonian Institution is funded 90% by public funds and 10% private funds. It was that 10% funded by those influential private citizens and corporation that scared off criticism. Interesting point, the one division of the Smithsonian Institution where the Freedom of Information Act is prohibited is the mighty National Gallery of Art I & II, the Mellon monuments.

Dr. Theodore Reid was the Director of the National Zoo. I met with him briefly in the beginning seeking enlightenment. Dr. Reid was a condescending political appointee, who didn’t have to answer to anyone, especially "animal loving old ladies in tennis shoes".. Dr. Reid did have to answer to Dillon Ripley the Director of the Smithsonian We unearthed a memo from Ripley saying Reid was his soldier, whatever he told him to do, he would, he was a good soldier, etc." Obviously, Dillon Ripley liked Dr. Reid’s performance.

Some of the employees and former employees of the National Zoo kept me informed of activities at the Zoo, and they were instrumental in directing me on what documents to request, such as animal population, deaths, causes of death, reproduction, costs, etc.

The National Zoo was a menagerie of animals. Dr. Reid collected these animals, got the publicity and the funding and somewhere lost track of taking care of these animals or just applying the most basic knowledge of the animal’s character and appropriate habitat. The National Zoo had just built their Panda House for the famous Chinese Pandas, Ling Ling and Ching Ching, and Dr. Reid would just stand out there in front of the yard where the Pandas were supposed to be mating in hopes of getting his picture in the newspaper, too.

I went over the Zoo’s death statistics with a former pathologist from the Zoo, and he found the death rate to be astronomical. Whereas, what was needed was just some good animal husbandry, meaning you put the right animal with the other right animals in an enclosure appropriate to their native habitat, feed them properly and train only if necessary. The elephants had to be trained and groomed. They, the Zoo, would take the baby animals away from the mother and the needed home environment, and the animals never learned how to be what they were supposed to be and/or how to raise their young to be what they are supposed. Elephants are social animals, pack animals and form strong emotional bonds.

Within a few months, Dzimbo dies alone in this big field. They did an autopsy on him and found nothing wrong. Perry swears Dzimbo died of a broken heart.

The above story, plus numerous others, made me try to get some news organization to do a story. I contacted every newspaper, TV and publication in D.C., and nobody was interested. Some lady from People Magazine called me and just wondered how I could possibly say anything bad about the National Zoo because People Magazine had just done one of their fluff pieces about how everything was perfect at our National Zoo. People Magazine’s version of real life and real life are not always the same species.

I wrote up a vast amount of material on the National Zoo and made numerous Freedom of Information requests to the Smithsonian Institution.. I finally made contact with an appropriate avenue for publishing the zoo material called "The Federal Times". It is a weekly newspaper dealing with the problems of the Federal Government and read by Federal employees. The newspaper is very thorough and backs up everything with facts, facts, facts and the lawyer goes over all the words very carefully before publication.

I also went to the Fund for Investigative Journalism to apply for a small grant to support my zoo work I told the Journalism people that a simple fact of life in Washington, D.C. is that nobody does or says anything against the Smithsonian Institution. They don’t get invitations to parties and various perks. I told the representative of the Fund for Investigative Journalism I was doing the story whether I got any money from them or not. They gave me a few hundred dollars.

The Smithsonian Institution is funded 90% by public funds and 10% by private funds.  It was that 10% funded by those influential private citizens and corporations that scared off criticism of any of the operations of the Smithsonian.  Interesting point: the one division of the Smithsonian Institution where the Freedom of Information is prohibited is the mighty National Gallery of Art I and II - the Mellon monuments.

Dr. Theodore Reid was the Director of the National Zoo.   Dr. Reid was a condescending political appointee, who didn't have to answer to anyone, especially "animal loving old ladies in tennis shoes" (as he referred to me).  Dr. Reid did have to answer to Dillon Ripley of the Smithsonian Institution.  We conducted an extensive interview with Dr. Reid before publication of the Federal Times Articles.

During a telephone conversation with the General Counsel of the Smithsonian, I asked about a particular species of animal.  The General Counsel replied with some weird question like "are you talking about the big animals or the little animals?" I remember being irritated and saying "all the animals of the National Zoo."

The Smithsonian’s General Counsel should have known more about his boss, Dillon Ripley’s association with "both" the little animals and little birds of the National Zoo. The last story we published (backed by a Smithsonian/National Zoo Inter-Office Memorandum) was regarding the transfer of multiple birds and Dik Dikes (midget African deer) to Dillon Ripley’s estate in Connecticut. After the story ran, Dillon Ripley said the reason he kept the animals and birds at his estate was that he had much better facilities for these endangered species than the National Zoo.

The 8 part series in the Federal Times started with "Remember Dzimbo" and ended with "Birds Fly in Bag with Ripley". UPI ran the story, and one of the local TV stations did a couple stories. The Zoo countered by saying that we, Indy Badwah and I, were not "experts" and had no right to write anything about animals or the practices of the National Zoo. Indy countered with his own column saying that is what every government bureaucrat says, and there is no such animal as an "expert" in Washington, D.C.

Another TV station whom I had contacted months earlier, called and said they wanted us to debate the National Zoo live on TV. I would go. Word spread about this upcoming debate, and somehow the rumor started that I was doing all this animal investigation stuff to promote my artwork. I did have multiple paintings of exotic animals and recently had a animal artwork show in a Bank’s windows on Connecticut Avenue.

I called the TV station who wanted the paintings shown, told them of the ongoing rumor and said I would not allow my paintings on that show where I would debate Dr. Reid.

The night before the TV show I was scared, called an old friend. I said I had been looking over some statistics , and it looked now like these same statistics could be the exact opposite, like half-empty, half-full. He laughed when I said "I’m afraid I’ll make a fool out of myself", and said "hey Vivian, that won’t be the first time."

The Smithsonian wouldn’t allow Dr. Reid to go on the show and instead sent their Deputy General Counsel. I met the gentleman in the Blue Room at the TV station. Just for laughs, I repeated the above story about making a fool out of yourself - live on TV. He laughed, and then looked quite serious.

The debate segment of this show covered about 15 minutes of air time. It was all very low-key. The Deputy General Counsel ended up quoting some bureaucratic line from the pages of the Smithsonian Manual, and I ended up quoting the keepers of the animals. A call was awaiting me after the show from one of doctors at the Zoo, he said it was a great performance, I was almost as boring as the Smithsonian representative.

Dr. Reid  retired early from the National Zoo. 

I was invited to a cocktail party of the National Association of  Zoo Directors of the United States which was to be held in the Lion's House at the National Zoo.  I declined such invitation.

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