WUOM runs a "summer documentary series" Tuesdays at 9; last night, I think, was the first I've caught. The topic was "zoos", and it was amazing.

The middle segment, "Dead or Alive", covered the topic of what to feed predators at the zoo. A lion, after all, really isn't designed for eating kibble - the very essence of lion-ness is chasing down a gazelle, tearing it apart, and chowing down. In what may be the zookeeper's version of the Slow Food movement, therefore, some zoos have started, periodically, serving whole animals to the predators. (Not live ones, mind you - the zoos feel that the American spectator still has some boundaries) - but dead whole calves, for example. Our very own Toledo Zoo is the site of the story, and one visitor comments to the reporter's tape recorder, "Wow, I have never seen a lion in the zoo move so fast!"

The best exchange, though, is one the reporter says she heard over and over again between parents and children. Loosely:

"Mommy, what *is* that?"
"Well...it's a...baby cow."
"Why are they eating baby cows?!"
"Well...because...that's what they eat."
"But - *I* don't eat cows!"
"Um, yes, you do, actually."
"...I do? When?"
"Well, hamburger is cows."

Amazing. Listening to that segment, at least, is worth the 20 minutes.