For years, Como Zoo has been the cheapest way to kill a Saturday afternoon. The zoo is one of the last vestiges of free entertainment in the cities. While enjoying this last ember of civic-minded fun, concerns inevitably arise about the welfare of the zoo’s inhabitants.
It has long been fashionable to worry about the conditions at Como, and things haven’t changed much in recent years. The other day, I took special note of the compulsive, repetitive acts of many of the zoo’s attractions. For starters, the polar bears and seals were swimming in endless, mindless circles. This behavior seemed to me to scream mental deterioration.
Dr. Petra Mertens of the University of Minnesota’s Veterinary College said the animals were exhibiting something called “stereotypy.” A product of confinement and sheer boredom, stereotypy results in abbreviated versions of an animal’s normal habits in the wild. Some claim such a coping mechanism releases endorphins, or is like meditation. Mertens said stereotypy is similar to obsessive-compulsive disorders in humans. “We don’t say ‘obsessive-compulsive’ because we don’t know if they obsess,” Mertens noted.
Seeking an explanation beyond science, The Rake hired animal communicator Mary Stoffel. Stoffel claims to be an animal psychic. I asked her to join me at the zoo to see if she could sort out what is on the animals’ minds. For a dollar a minute, Stoffel utilizes a technique called “extreme empathy.”
“I am not reading the animal’s mind, I am dependent on what the animal chooses to tell me,” said Stoffel, who has been a professional animal psychic for ten years and a “communicator” all her life.
Approaching two seals in an indoor pool, Stoffel picked up their natural seal names but was unable to pronounce them. “It’s like a series of whistles and clicks,” she said, squinting and bending down toward a seal that looked like a spotted, plump bratwurst. “The large one is very appreciative of the fact that we are at least asking for information, that we’re not making assumptions about them.”
As Stoffel conveyed this line of thought, the seal known as “Click Click Whistle” stopped his constant swimming and hovered near the bottom of the pool. He was apparently embarrassed by such a frank discussion of his emotions.
“He definitely knows we’re here and asking,” Stoffel said as we approached Tango (human name), a young seal in his own pool. As she squinted at him, Tango repeatedly came up and shook his head. Stoffel felt something was amiss with Tango’s ears or eyes. She asked him to come out of the water so she could see his head. Ten seconds later, Tango obliged. He heaved his slick, serpentine body onto a foot-wide ledge between the pool and the glass. He held his head, and Stoffel examined him. “Yeah, something is bothering his face,” she said.
Down the corridor, Neal the polar bear splashed on. He swims ceaselessly, sticking his head out of the water, gliding back, and doing a spot-on imitation of an Olympic swimmer hitting the wall and executing a flip turn. Neal does a full somersault before pushing off the wall with his big yellowed paws. The big guy exudes captured regality; he’s as graceful as Esther Williams.
“What I’m getting from him is mind-numbing boredom,” Stoffel said gravely. “He is totally zoned out and into his behavior. With this guy, we’re insignificant unless we’re feeding him.”
In the cat building, two lions slept on the cement floor like newlyweds, aware only of each other and oblivious to their humble dwelling. The male’s paw lay gently on the female’s face, and their other limbs entwined. “They feel good and are well fed, and they are aware of the fact that people care about them,” Stoffel said. “Out in the wild, there’s a very good chance they could both be injured or have festering sores.”
Normally, Stoffel does her animal communication by telephone, with the owner serving as the psychic conduit. The zoo can be hard. “I find it pretty distressing,” she admitted. “However, a lot of animals in the zoo have chosen this as their life mission.”
Stoffel dismissed the contention that being captured and hauled to St. Paul hardly seems like a choice for the animals. “Animals come into this world with a mission, same as people,” she maintained. “If they find themselves in a situation where it is intolerable for them, they find ways to check out. They either live, or check out by becoming ill, escaping, or dying.”—Geoff Ziezulewicz
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