The Chris Moeller Archives

Morning TV is so bad, but when my alarm goes off in the morning, I have to watch it for at least a few minutes. It helps me wake up and I have an addiction. Usually I just get the weather forecast and then I hang around for the traffic because that woman that does the reports on Channel 8 has got it going on. Then-- because I don't want to get up yet-- I start flipping around and the pickings are slim, but lately I find myself stopping on this Animal Planet program about the big jungle cats-- tigers, lions, jaguars. For a couple minutes, I watch these bad boys-- and girls-- stalk a gazelle or just the big ones chasing the smaller ones, whatever. It's a good, fast pick-me-up struggle between life and death, and then it's off to the shower to prepare for much of the same at work.

But I find these big powerful cats kind of terrifying. A friend informed me of the stories she's read about how wild tigers come down from the mountains in parts of Asia and maul to death entire villages. I've started having bad dreams about it. I had one last week where I was laying on my back on the floor up against a pair of propped up pillows (as I'm wont to do in real life!), but then my friend says to me, "Those aren't pillows. That's the belly of a sleeping jungle cat!" Then I'm like, "Don't wake it up. I'm going to try to gently lift my head and move slowly away. I have to do a stomach crunch, which I hate to do, and I try to be as careful as I can getting away. Does the tiger wake up? No, I do. I'm terrified.

So today comes the story that Cha Cha, a long-time resident lion at the Blank Park Zoo, has been euthanized. The 16-year-old king of the jungle for Des Moines proper was diagnosed with inoperable liver cancer and was put down. Reading about Cha Cha helps to humanize the big cats, as it were. But that's what we do right? It's called anthropomorphism-- assigning human characteristics to animals, or even inanimate objects. In our imaginations, animals learn to speak the King's English, chomp on carrots while digging tunnels underground to Albuquerque, New Mexico, or play poker with their pals in "man caves." They come "alive" in literature, movies and television, or just as stuffed animals

Cha Cha was trained to be an entertainer. Details are not immediate online, and I never witnessed his act, but I imagine his talents include going up on his hind legs while avoiding being poked by the legs of a chair, maybe walking through a ring of fire, or nuzzling his face against that of his trainer and planting a kiss on him or her while not ripping out his larnyx. Maybe that's just circus lions ("showbiz lions") that do that stuff, but hey, it sounds like a hell of a show.

It seems that when Cha Cha was 10, he participated in a study by the Field Museum in Chicago to determine whether thicker manes in male lions heighten sexual attraction in females. Yes, you know if you clicked on the story linked above that Cha Cha was "packin'" when it comes to manes. Cha Cha loved the ladies. And the ladies loved Cha Cha.

On their Facebook page, the zoo is inviting you to share your favorite "stories, pictures, and videos" of Cha Cha. I'm not sure what a good story of Cha Cha would be. Maybe the time you watched him sleep in the sun for hours on end, or the time you thought you heard his roar when you were all the way downtown, which it's been rumored you could do, or maybe it was that time you thought you saw him give you a knowing head nod as you approached his cage.

Rest in peace, Cha Cha. See you around the way. Probably while I'm sleeping.