Segment aired April 4, 2015 as part of the “Dave’s Gone By” radio program hosted by Dave Lefkowitz.
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48.
A new trainee at the L.A. Zoo is learning the ropes of both the apiary and the small aquatic mammals section.
On his first morning, the supervisor tells him, “You’re in luck. We just got a huge beehive shipped from a zoo in San Francisco. These are great bees to work with because the Bay Area weather makes them very docile. That’s why we’re going to crossbreed them with our more aggressive honeybees from Africa.”
So they spend a productive morning with the bees, and then after lunch, they look at the muskrats and beavers and otters and other small mammals.
The next day, they do the same routine. They check the beehive and see how many are mating, how many aren’t, and how many didn’t survive. Amazingly, only one bee from San Francisco hasn’t survived through the night. The trainee delicately scoops it up in a container and is about to throw it away when the supervisor says, “No time! I just got a text. We have to head over to the mammals.”
They get there and they see one of the otters floating face down. “What happened?” says the supervisor.
“Well, he was old,” answers the veteran zookeeper. “He was getting his medicinal bath when his heart gave out. I’m afraid you two will have dispose of him.”
So the supervisor and the trainee delicately remove the otter from the bath. The trainee then puts the mammal in a crate with the dead bee from San Francisco. He’s about to toss them both in the dumpster when the supervisor stops him. “No, no, no!” he cries. “They have to be separate.”
“How come?” the trainee asks.
“Don’t you know?” says the supervisor. “You can’t throw the Bay Bee out with the Bath Otter.”
