Last October, a young woman stood at the edge of the wire door to the enclosure of Komo, one of the zoo's two Komodo dragons, and asked to go in for a closer look.
While a reptile keeper and the zoo director watched, the woman, whose mother, Myra Wildhorn, had donated a quarter of a million dollars to build new habitats for the giant lizards, spent an uneventful few minutes inside the enclosure.
"The monitor never moved from the corner," said Zoo Director Manuel Mollinedo. "He followed her with his eyes." So the only thing unusual about the reptile house visit of Sharon Stone and her husband, Phil Bronstein, the executive editor of the San Francisco Chronicle, was that it went horribly awry.
"I think we showed poor judgment," Mollinedo said. He now must approve all special visits, and those guests will be required to sign a waiver of liability.
But one thing will not change. The zoo will continue to conduct its behind-the-scenes tours, which are a crucial fund-raising tool.
"With most of the donors who go behind the scenes, we're the aggressors," said Mollinedo. "We'll say: 'Why don't you come out to lunch, we'll talk to you about what we're doing, we'll take a behind-the-scenes tour.' "
Celebrity interest is especially valuable. "With someone as high-profile as Sharon Stone, it's probably worth more to us just to have her involved with the zoo," Mollinedo said. Two weeks ago, Shaquille O'Neal bottle-fed a baby giraffe in the animal nursery.
The zoo's fund-raising arm, the Greater Los Angeles Zoo Assn., raised $5.5 million last year. There are usually several campaigns underway to improve or rebuild animal habitats. Wildhorn's donation will help pay for new Komodo dragon habitats, and allowed her to name the 4-year-old males, Komo and Modo.
During Bronstein's visit last Saturday, the reptile keeper made an impromptu decision to allow the newspaperman to enter the 5-foot-high cross-hatched wire door leading to Komo's 14-foot by 9-foot lair. Komo, who is 7 feet long from nose to tail and weighs about 55 pounds, is expected to soon outgrow its cramped quarters. When Bronstein walked into the enclosure, the lizard eyed his white gym shoes and began to approach.
"Someone made the comment, 'The animal thinks your shoe is a white rat,' " said Mollinedo, who was not there but has talked to the zoo staffers who were. Bronstein took off his white shoes and white socks. He petted the lizard and was moving around the enclosure when the lizard's teeth sliced into his toe, according to the account he gave his own newspaper.
