LA Zoo stuck with $7 million monkey cage

The LA Times reports on the LA Zoo pouring millions in taxpayer money into a monkey exhibit, but without any monkeys:

The city spent $7.4 million building the China-themed primate enclosure — complete with Canary Island palm trees, artificial trees with extra springy limbs, and a viewing structure with Chinese-style tilework — after China promised to lend the zoo a trio of rare golden snub-nosed monkeys.

But now the Chinese government has taken the monkeys off the table, leaving zoo officials searching for suitable stand-in simians to take the place of the golden monkeys, known for their blue-faces and blond-hair.

I guess the zookeepers didn't ask for a Monkey-Back Guarantee.

Okay, sorry about that. The zoo is hoping to find a use for the exhibit, given the large investment.

The city agreed to pay the Chinese government $100,000 a year for the monkeys that were offered instead of pandas. Officials voted in 2006 to build the enclosure designed to look like a rural Chinese village. The enclosure was finished in 2008.

A feng shui expert hired for $4,500 tweaked the final design with a water fountain and other features meant to promote the monkeys' health and happiness.

Zoo officials are now consulting with their colleagues at other zoos to obtain native Chinese monkey species that will fit in with the surroundings.

I could learn to live with the smog. It certainly sounds nicer than my apartment.

Hattip: Glenn Beck