The rhino that didn’t want to take a bath
Editor’s note: Alicia Armstrong, who wrote the popular “Zooperstars!” column in the old Milwaukee Journal Green Sheet, wasn’t shy about taking animals at the Milwaukee County Zoo to task for bad behavior. Take this column, published on this date in 1978, about a certain rhinoceros whose resistance to bathing was causing domestic discord at the zoo.
It’s hard to feel any sympathy for her at all.
She has her troubles, sure. And they’re serious. No question about that. But how can you sympathize with someone who is entirely responsible for her own problems — someone who could be as happy as Charlie and as successful as his “Angels” if she would only take a few simple steps to help herself?
The few simple steps would take her directly under the shower, where her troubles — which seem to be more tenacious than man’s sins — would be washed away.
Our woeful one is Melusha, one of the three African white rhinos at the Milwaukee County Zoo.
Three, in this case, is a most appropriate number, because the hefty trio does, in fact, form a romantic triangle. The female principals are Misenda and Melusha, and the male is Mtondo Htondo.
Misenda and Mtondo Htondo are an item, while Melusha is the outsider. The latter is just as attractive as Misenda, their intellectual capacities are on a par, they have equally arcane senses of humor and both of them, presumably, have similar potentials for amour.
However, Mtondo Htondo finds Melusha about as desirable as the Russian flu.
Why? That is the question, which, for years, has seemed to be one of those tantalizing puzzles that unfortunately have no answer.
Melusha, the rejected lass, has suffered, of course. She is lonely. She is humiliated. Her cup of woe runneth over, and no one has known how to release her from her torment.
Frankly, the dedicated and resourceful zookeepers who share their days with the pachyderms should have been able to figure out Melusha’s problem a long time ago. But you know how it is: Sometimes it’s hard to detect something that’s right under your nose.
And this, apparently, has been right under everyone’s nose. For the distressing fact is that Melusha does not like to bathe, and, in fact, will not do so unless and until the cleansing is forced on her by despairing friends (the zookeepers, not the other rhinos).
During the winter, showers are turned on every day in the rhinos’ quarters. These are treatments that keep the skins of at least two of the occupants soft and lovely, and who can doubt that the daily dousings also serve to make them socially acceptable.
“Mtondo Htondo and Misenda love the showers,” said zookeeper Jim Scheffler. “They look forward to them, and they’ll roll over and over under the water like big dogs. But Melusha — she doesn’t like them at all.
“In fact, when we turn the showers on, she’ll run away so that the water can’t hit her. Sometimes, we’re able to catch her standing under the shower nozzles and then when we turn the water on and catch her by surprise, she runs away again and gives us dirty looks.”
How does a rhino go about giving a dirty look?
“She puts her ears down and flares her nostrils,” Scheffler said.
He added that, occasionally, despite Melusha’s protests, he or other zookeepers “have to hit her with the hose.” Otherwise, she would never be washed at all, leaving her in a condition which can hardly be even imagined.