Wow. This is a bit depressing. Scratch that, a lot.

According to the Chron, former directors of zoos around the globe gave the San Francisco Zoo a failing grade when it comes to caring for animals. Some of the zoo's problems are "severely outdated exhibits and animals that behave unnaturally." Take, for example, glaring issues as the African Savanna exhibit -- which lacks enough shelter or food for animals, according to Peter Stroud, a former zoo chief from the Werribee Open Range Zoo and Melbourne Zoo in Australia -- pacing polar bears, and their their "Third-World"-like chimpanzee exhibit.

Particularly damning was what Robert Atkinson, former curator of the Woburn Safari Park in England, had to say. He drolled that the exhibits at the SF Zoo "were like something from the 19th century...like a zoo you would see in Eastern Europe." Ouch.

On a lighter note, we've got some fantastic but totally unfounded third-hand gossip, which is so not at all true, but it will help rid your mind of that sad pacing polar bear image: the Dhaliwal brothers, a San Francisco zookeeper allegedly quipped, urinated in the tiger exhibit and possibly at/on Tatiana, taunting her. Yeah, we don't buy it either. But...there you go.

Image credit: Louis Proyect: the Unrepentant Marxist