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This is where and how circus zebra's live

"Zebra runs amok in the ATL"
We are by no means f*ing with you, dear readers, that was indeed the headline out of Atlanta this afternoon. Our pop culture editor, a radical Gaian, is always telling the rest of the staff that the zoo is animal jail. They think of it as the clink, the pokey, the cell block. In his view, the circus is an even lower form of routine, more akin to a chain gang. Today one of the zebras made a break from the Man. In its case, the man was Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus.

The story is thus. The circus was in Atlanta. The zebra got loose from his handler and made a break for it. Cue wild goose chase scene now! And, bingo. The Atlanta Constitution Journal quotes Daniel Nance, "All of a sudden, a freaking zebra comes running down the street like a car. Five or six police cars were in hot pursuit. And a bunch of officers on foot."

For real. The boundaries of possible and real events are unimaginably large, and the number of events verges on the infinite, ergo things can and do happen.

The ATL-CJ continues, "Prapik Jani saw the animal jogging along Baker Street a half mile away next to Centennial Olympic Park. Jani...looked outside and saw an African creature running down the pavement. "It was wild," Jani said. "I thought I was seeing things."

Jani said there were "a bunch" of police on bicycles chasing after the zebra."

Reportedly the zebra was cornered in the parking area by the Richard B. Russell Federal Building, which is near the CNN Center and NBA Atlanta Hawks' Philips Arena.

Circus trainers were walking with the zebra when it started to charge again, dragging one of the trainers momentarily before it took off, in another bid for freedom, running across the railroad tracks and through a gate. One of the trainers was holding on to the zebra as it ran through the gate, but subsequently bounced loose as the zebra headed first for a nearby underground tunnel, and then up the block to a freeway entrance ramp. According to the Constitution Journal, "[he] was finally captured on the interstate near the Grady curve. According to witnesses, he was galloping between lanes of traffic on the Downtown Connector before his capture."

When a creature yearns to be free, say what, say what, anything can happen.

Read the Atlanta Constitution Journal's whole account here.

Labels: ecology, humor, Pop Culture