This is a strange sort of story that happened only about an hour & half away from where I grew up. A guy that grew up in Royal, NE town of 80 some people and was around 10 years older than me, was fascinated by apes, gorillas, chimpanzees and other monkeys from learning about them in school. He goes to UNL--U Neb Lincoln and after getting degree works at the local zoo with the monkeys. His real desire is to go to Africa and work and study them there but this becomes derailed. The main chimp he was working with needed to be moved and he sets up a plan to make a zoo in his hometown and brings the chimp with him. This was late 1980s into early 1990s. He becomes the zoo director and eventually secures some funding--mostly from Johnny Carson--his hometown of Norfolk, NE was only about half hour or so away. The zoo hangs on and Dick Haskin--the guy who started this eventually becomes burned out and is basically forced or decided to get out of it. He finds a couple to take over and while some small improvements happen is still too much of a struggle. The leadership devolves into locals that really don't have experience or training to take over. Zoo ends after first chimp and 3 others get out an open door and terrorize the little zoo and town. 3 chimps are shot and killed while other had returned to cage. Book finishes with the complete ending with equipment sales, land sales and court fight over it. Just a strange story that I hadn't heard of before finding this book.
There are 2 WL for this book on PBS but it is a keeper for me since about NE.
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