BRIDGEPORT, Conn. (AP) – Workers who open the Beardsley Zoo each morning are used to greeting people with newspapers and cups of coffee in hand, waiting to enter its gates. But discovering a patient sheep – sporting a jaunty bandanna, no less – was a first.
Officials at Connecticut’s only zoo say that’s what greeted them Friday morning, and are unsure whether a former owner dropped off the black-faced ewe or it wandered there on its own.
“I’ve been opening for 12 years and I’ve found everything from chickens to iguanas left by people outside the gate, but this was a first,” said Beardsley greenhouse worker Gary Jessop. “I considered putting her to work on the crew, cutting the grass,” he said.
The zoo is located in a densely populated area of Connecticut’s largest city, and is near several major intersections and a highway. Unless it lived in one of the nearby residential neighborhoods, chances are slim that the sheep wandered to the zoo’s gates on its own.
The silence of the lamb – and those who know of its origins – have zoo officials puzzled and amused.
The zoo has about six Cotswold sheep, but they are an endangered species and zoo employees do not want to mix the black-faced ewe with them. It will be held in quarantine until its owner comes forward, or it might be donated to a farm.
“She got in without paying the admission fee,” zoo director Gregg Dancho said. “I guess you could say we were fleeced.”
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