Neighbors cut off Oakland Zoo's elephant snacks

[Liberal_in_LA]

Neighbors cut off Oakland Zoo's elephant snacks
Carolyn Jones, Chronicle Staff Writer

Friday, January 15, 2010

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Someone had finally found a use for the nonnative, fire-hazard trees in the Oakland hills: feed them to the elephants.

For seven years, Oakland Zoo crews had chopped down black acacia trees and delivered the crunchy snacks to the zoo's elephants, giraffes, camels, zebras and elk.

For much of that time, the zoo had permission from the Navy-run Oak Knoll site to take the trees. But in recent years, after the military pulled out of the site, the zoo continued taking the trees - and also took a few from a city park, King Estates Open Space, without permission.

Irate neighbors of those sites recently alerted the city and threatened to take legal action to stop the zoo's practice - and the zoo stopped taking trees a few months ago.

"The trees don't belong to them. It's theft," said Don Mitchell of the Sequoyah Hills/Oak Knoll Neighborhood Association, the same group that successfully fought to get a developer to clean up toxic substances at the former Oak Knoll Naval Hospital.

"If I had gone to King Estates and chopped down 10 trees, I'd be arrested and prosecuted," he said.


Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/01/15/BAVQ1BIEJF.DTL#ixzz0chh1RmX9

[hlthe2b]

1. Cretins..... I hope the public backlash makes them miserable

[GodlessBiker]

2. Taking the trees without permission was not a good idea.

[Vincardog]

4. They had permission when the Navy was there. Whats the problem with removing invasive fire threat?

[GodlessBiker]

5. The Navy trees were fine. The public park trees? Not so much.

[Vincardog]

6. What is wrong with removing an invasive fire hazard? Do you want to parks Dept to PAY to remove them

[GodlessBiker]

8. I don't want people or organizations walking into public parks and deciding on their own...

what trees can be cut down and then cutting them down without any sort of permission sought or obtained by the people charged with protecting the park.

[Vincardog]

10. IS that the choice?

[Vincardog]

3. The HOA NAZIS like the "nonnative, fire-hazard trees" go figure

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

9. A neighborhood association is not the same thing as an HOA. n/t

[joeybee12]

7. Feed the HOA to the elephants...

...can't, though, they're vegetraians. Maybe they have lions at the Oakland Zoo?