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Unexpected violence at the San Diego Zoo
2022 first-place writing contest winner
Jake Peterson
First Place Winner
CHANGING OF THE GUARD
When people found out I worked security at the world famous San Diego Zoo, they asked: “What’s the craziest thing you’ve seen?” It wasn’t until my last night of employment that I was able to give them a good story.
The zoo had just adopted a new deadly predator earlier that day...a lady saltwater crocodile. She was put with the male crocodile; they shared a tank and small sandy beach. My final shift, I was tasked with checking on them every hour to make sure nothing...wild happened. But nature was unkind that night.
It was late June. My shift started at 10 pm. Night had already strangled the sun into submission that sticky summer evening about an hour earlier. As I entered the office to gear up, there was a new face in a security uniform sitting in a chair near the door. It was a pretty face that belonged to a woman named Grace.
“Jake, you’re going to be training Grace here tonight. Show her the route and checkpoints,” my supervisor, Dave, instructed.
Her first night on the job, and my last.
I looked for a fully juiced radio...the only thing that stands between a terrible situation and backup.
“And we also have to check the reptile tank every hour,” he said. “We have to make sure no crocodile tears are shed tonight.”
Apparently, the female is the aggressor when these crocodiles cohabit a shared environment, and when the female has a mouth full of skull-crushing teeth, it gives a new meaning to the phrase: happy wife, happy life. So I snagged a flashlight and figured I should check out the new girl with the new girl in training first thing.
“I’ll take you down Monkey Trail and then we’ll go up by the gorillas and over to the crocs,” I said, trying to act cool, showing my firm grasp of the zoo grounds.
She flashed a perfect crooked-toothed grin.
When we got to the crocs tank, I shined the flashlight towards the small sandy area where I knew the monster reptiles liked to lounge.
“I see one,” I said. “Do you see another one anywhere?”
We both looked into the remote areas where I shined my light.
“I think I see something over there,” she said.
“Good enough for me. We’ll come back in an hour,” I replied. “If you can’t tell, I’m pretty much checked out of this place.”
Over the next sixty minutes before our second check, Grace and I zipped around the zoo on a golf cart. I told her exciting stories I had heard from past security guards about slippery animal escapes, hoping to get a small scare out of her.
“The old night shift guard told me one of the gorillas escaped around this time of night because a contractor left a small opening in their exhibit that day,” I said.
“No way!” she replied. What happened?”
“I guess the simian was just roaming around the zoo aimlessly. Probably getting into all sorts of cool shit he never knew existed. Maybe got some ice cream and popcorn. I hope he did, anyway.”
“I mean, did they have to shoot him or anything?” she asked, concerned.
“From what I heard, they just tranquilized him and locked him back up. Poor guy.”
There were a lot of tough moments that happened during my time at the zoo. Harambe, for one. One BIG one. One day, a couple of disheveled teenage boys noticed my security uniform, approached me, and asked if smoking was allowed at the zoo. I told them that it certainly was not. “Then why the fuck did you smoke Harambe?!” one snapped back. It was a clever joke that I couldn’t help but honestly laugh at. So I told them where the best hiding spots to smoke were.
“One of the elephants even hanged itself on the fence one night,” I said to Grace. “The next day, they put what looked like a circus tent around the scene and took some saws in there. You couldn’t see what they were doing, but you knew what was happening. It’s still eerie whenever I walk by. That’s why we have to do elephant checks throughout the night.”
Why was I telling this new trainee all this morbid shit?
Second check on the crocs. One was in the tank and one on the beach. They were behaving themselves and keeping their distance from one another...so far.
But not Grace and me. I was showing her all around the shops and food stands, telling her what you could get away with, because that’s what a good trainer does.
The night was heating up. I took her to Sabertooth Grill and poured us a couple of lemonades — on the house, of course.
“So why do you want to work security at the zoo?” I asked, taking large swigs from my cup.
“I just wanted to work here, doing anything,” she said. “It seems like such a fun place to work.”
“That’s pretty much how I felt too. I came here one day with some family and saw a security guard driving around, then thought, ‘I could do that gig.’ I applied a few days later and boom, here I am.”
“So is it awesome working here, or what?”
I smiled and thought about it for a moment. It was a cool and fun job on the surface, but the mystique quickly fizzles as the zoo shrinks into what feels like a little town of animal prison sadness. I didn’t want to tell Grace this, as she seemed so excited by the thought of working in such an exotic setting.
“Come on. I want you to meet a friend of mine,” I said. “He lives over in the Children’s Zoo.”
The keys on my duty belt jingled and the sounds of parrot squawking became intensely audible as we walked down a back path in the Children’s Zoo. Since Grace would be taking my spot on the security roster, it was imperative that she have a proper introduction to one of my good avian pals who I would be leaving behind.
Rio was a Yellow-headed Amazon parrot. He wasn’t from Brazil — Mexico, rather — but he acted like every night was Carnival, dancing and flapping those green and yellow wings of his. I spent a lot of time with Rio during night shifts, and on most days I worked, he would be the first animal I visited. We enjoyed deep conversations that went like this: “Hi, Rio.”
“Hi,” he would reply.
“Hi,” I said again.
“Hi.”
“Hi.”
“Hi.”
This would go on for about five to ten minutes until I resumed my duties. And it would happen a few times more on any given shift.
“This is Rio,” I said to Grace.
“Hi Rio,” she said.
“Hi,” Rio responded.
“Be good to Rio when I’m gone,” I said. “He has family trauma.”
“Really?”
“No, but maybe.”
Time to check the crocs again. It was 3 am, the witching hour. When I shined my light in the tank I saw the male in the water. “There’s one,” I said. I shined the light on the beach, but nothing was there. “Where the hell is it?” I panned the stream of light on a concrete slab and noticed a dark oily substance all over the ground. “What the hell?” I studied and studied the substance with squinted eyes until I saw that it...was red. Ooooh, that’s blood! I looked around frantically and saw more blood, and more blood, and MORE blood. The blood was fucking everywhere! What’s going on?! Where’s the other crocodile? Is the one I saw in the tank dead? Is it that one’s blood? Whose blood is this? My eyes widened as I desperately tried to remain calm and collected. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. My final night on the job?! Having to train a new guard. Domestic crocodile violence to the highest degree. Murder?
“Grace, do you see the other croc anywhere? We need to find it.”
There was movement further down on the concrete slab and when I found it with my flashlight, there stood the other crocodile in her natural pushup position, like a crossfitter from hell. With her tongue dangling from a jawless head into a pool of her own blood. Her mangled face formed an unnatural, sinister smile as she gazed in our direction. I noticed a small piece of white meat on the ground a couple feet from her and realized...it was her detached jaw.
“Hooooly shit,” I said, consumed by disbelief.
Grace was gobsmacked. “What do we do?” she cried.
“You have to go in there and grab the jaw, like a rite of passage thing,” I joked, trying to cut the tension.
She looked at me, unamused.
I was told the male croc was the one we needed to be looking out for, but it was his actions that had led to such a gory crime scene.
Fumbling for the correct button on the radio, I called my supervisor and sternly told him he needed to get down there as soon as he could. When he saw the horror, he quickly urged us to go back to the office and call the reptile keepers. “Wake their asses out of bed if you have to,” he ordered.
The reptile keepers came in and pushed us out of the way. Grace and I watched from behind the glass as they harnessed the female from the enclosure.
“What do you think they’re going to do with her?” she asked me.
“Euthanasia, maybe. How the hell is she going to eat without a jaw?”
We looked on as the sun began its morning stretch. The birds began to play and sing, and the animals started waking up, not knowing what had happened in their little zoo town just hours prior.
We stood there in silence, blank faced, traumatized, unable not to think about what we had just witnessed. I turned to Grace and asked, “So, you still want to work here?”
Here's something you might be interested in.
Unexpected violence at the San Diego Zoo
2022 first-place writing contest winner
Unexpected violence at the San Diego Zoo
2022 first-place writing contest winner
Jake Peterson
First Place Winner
CHANGING OF THE GUARD
When people found out I worked security at the world famous San Diego Zoo, they asked: “What’s the craziest thing you’ve seen?” It wasn’t until my last night of employment that I was able to give them a good story.
The zoo had just adopted a new deadly predator earlier that day...a lady saltwater crocodile. She was put with the male crocodile; they shared a tank and small sandy beach. My final shift, I was tasked with checking on them every hour to make sure nothing...wild happened. But nature was unkind that night.
It was late June. My shift started at 10 pm. Night had already strangled the sun into submission that sticky summer evening about an hour earlier. As I entered the office to gear up, there was a new face in a security uniform sitting in a chair near the door. It was a pretty face that belonged to a woman named Grace.
“Jake, you’re going to be training Grace here tonight. Show her the route and checkpoints,” my supervisor, Dave, instructed.
Her first night on the job, and my last.
I looked for a fully juiced radio...the only thing that stands between a terrible situation and backup.
“And we also have to check the reptile tank every hour,” he said. “We have to make sure no crocodile tears are shed tonight.”
Apparently, the female is the aggressor when these crocodiles cohabit a shared environment, and when the female has a mouth full of skull-crushing teeth, it gives a new meaning to the phrase: happy wife, happy life. So I snagged a flashlight and figured I should check out the new girl with the new girl in training first thing.
“I’ll take you down Monkey Trail and then we’ll go up by the gorillas and over to the crocs,” I said, trying to act cool, showing my firm grasp of the zoo grounds.
She flashed a perfect crooked-toothed grin.
When we got to the crocs tank, I shined the flashlight towards the small sandy area where I knew the monster reptiles liked to lounge.
“I see one,” I said. “Do you see another one anywhere?”
We both looked into the remote areas where I shined my light.
“I think I see something over there,” she said.
“Good enough for me. We’ll come back in an hour,” I replied. “If you can’t tell, I’m pretty much checked out of this place.”
Over the next sixty minutes before our second check, Grace and I zipped around the zoo on a golf cart. I told her exciting stories I had heard from past security guards about slippery animal escapes, hoping to get a small scare out of her.
“The old night shift guard told me one of the gorillas escaped around this time of night because a contractor left a small opening in their exhibit that day,” I said.
“No way!” she replied. What happened?”
“I guess the simian was just roaming around the zoo aimlessly. Probably getting into all sorts of cool shit he never knew existed. Maybe got some ice cream and popcorn. I hope he did, anyway.”
“I mean, did they have to shoot him or anything?” she asked, concerned.
“From what I heard, they just tranquilized him and locked him back up. Poor guy.”
There were a lot of tough moments that happened during my time at the zoo. Harambe, for one. One BIG one. One day, a couple of disheveled teenage boys noticed my security uniform, approached me, and asked if smoking was allowed at the zoo. I told them that it certainly was not. “Then why the fuck did you smoke Harambe?!” one snapped back. It was a clever joke that I couldn’t help but honestly laugh at. So I told them where the best hiding spots to smoke were.
“One of the elephants even hanged itself on the fence one night,” I said to Grace. “The next day, they put what looked like a circus tent around the scene and took some saws in there. You couldn’t see what they were doing, but you knew what was happening. It’s still eerie whenever I walk by. That’s why we have to do elephant checks throughout the night.”
Why was I telling this new trainee all this morbid shit?
Second check on the crocs. One was in the tank and one on the beach. They were behaving themselves and keeping their distance from one another...so far.
But not Grace and me. I was showing her all around the shops and food stands, telling her what you could get away with, because that’s what a good trainer does.
The night was heating up. I took her to Sabertooth Grill and poured us a couple of lemonades — on the house, of course.
“So why do you want to work security at the zoo?” I asked, taking large swigs from my cup.
“I just wanted to work here, doing anything,” she said. “It seems like such a fun place to work.”
“That’s pretty much how I felt too. I came here one day with some family and saw a security guard driving around, then thought, ‘I could do that gig.’ I applied a few days later and boom, here I am.”
“So is it awesome working here, or what?”
I smiled and thought about it for a moment. It was a cool and fun job on the surface, but the mystique quickly fizzles as the zoo shrinks into what feels like a little town of animal prison sadness. I didn’t want to tell Grace this, as she seemed so excited by the thought of working in such an exotic setting.
“Come on. I want you to meet a friend of mine,” I said. “He lives over in the Children’s Zoo.”
The keys on my duty belt jingled and the sounds of parrot squawking became intensely audible as we walked down a back path in the Children’s Zoo. Since Grace would be taking my spot on the security roster, it was imperative that she have a proper introduction to one of my good avian pals who I would be leaving behind.
Rio was a Yellow-headed Amazon parrot. He wasn’t from Brazil — Mexico, rather — but he acted like every night was Carnival, dancing and flapping those green and yellow wings of his. I spent a lot of time with Rio during night shifts, and on most days I worked, he would be the first animal I visited. We enjoyed deep conversations that went like this: “Hi, Rio.”
“Hi,” he would reply.
“Hi,” I said again.
“Hi.”
“Hi.”
“Hi.”
This would go on for about five to ten minutes until I resumed my duties. And it would happen a few times more on any given shift.
“This is Rio,” I said to Grace.
“Hi Rio,” she said.
“Hi,” Rio responded.
“Be good to Rio when I’m gone,” I said. “He has family trauma.”
“Really?”
“No, but maybe.”
Time to check the crocs again. It was 3 am, the witching hour. When I shined my light in the tank I saw the male in the water. “There’s one,” I said. I shined the light on the beach, but nothing was there. “Where the hell is it?” I panned the stream of light on a concrete slab and noticed a dark oily substance all over the ground. “What the hell?” I studied and studied the substance with squinted eyes until I saw that it...was red. Ooooh, that’s blood! I looked around frantically and saw more blood, and more blood, and MORE blood. The blood was fucking everywhere! What’s going on?! Where’s the other crocodile? Is the one I saw in the tank dead? Is it that one’s blood? Whose blood is this? My eyes widened as I desperately tried to remain calm and collected. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. My final night on the job?! Having to train a new guard. Domestic crocodile violence to the highest degree. Murder?
“Grace, do you see the other croc anywhere? We need to find it.”
There was movement further down on the concrete slab and when I found it with my flashlight, there stood the other crocodile in her natural pushup position, like a crossfitter from hell. With her tongue dangling from a jawless head into a pool of her own blood. Her mangled face formed an unnatural, sinister smile as she gazed in our direction. I noticed a small piece of white meat on the ground a couple feet from her and realized...it was her detached jaw.
“Hooooly shit,” I said, consumed by disbelief.
Grace was gobsmacked. “What do we do?” she cried.
“You have to go in there and grab the jaw, like a rite of passage thing,” I joked, trying to cut the tension.
She looked at me, unamused.
I was told the male croc was the one we needed to be looking out for, but it was his actions that had led to such a gory crime scene.
Fumbling for the correct button on the radio, I called my supervisor and sternly told him he needed to get down there as soon as he could. When he saw the horror, he quickly urged us to go back to the office and call the reptile keepers. “Wake their asses out of bed if you have to,” he ordered.
The reptile keepers came in and pushed us out of the way. Grace and I watched from behind the glass as they harnessed the female from the enclosure.
“What do you think they’re going to do with her?” she asked me.
“Euthanasia, maybe. How the hell is she going to eat without a jaw?”
We looked on as the sun began its morning stretch. The birds began to play and sing, and the animals started waking up, not knowing what had happened in their little zoo town just hours prior.
We stood there in silence, blank faced, traumatized, unable not to think about what we had just witnessed. I turned to Grace and asked, “So, you still want to work here?”