Manuel Mollinedo can’t catch a break. In 1996, while he was director of the Los Angeles Zoo, a female Asian elephant trampled a zookeeper, and five years later a Komodo dragon bit the foot of journalist Phil Bronstein (who was married at the time to actress Sharon Stone).
Mollinedo then headed north to the San Francisco Zoo. In 2007, on his watch, a Siberian tiger that had previously attacked a zookeeper escaped and mauled three people, killing one of them. It was later determined that the fence around the animal’s enclosure was nearly four feet shorter than the recommended height.
And so Mollinedo moved to Hawaii to take the reins at the Honolulu Zoo, which this week was refused re-accreditation by the national Association of Zoos and Aquariums because of “concerns regarding the filling of vacant personnel positions [and] repairs and upgrades of animal exhibits.”
So much for third time’s a charm.
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