TORONTO – With two capybaras having escaped from the High Park Zoo earlier this week, administrators are hoping that zoo visitors don’t notice that the animals have been temporarily replaced by two enormous rats found on the TTC.
“Thankfully our good friends at the Dundas West Capybara Farm had a few spares for us,” said head zookeeper Tim Luminare, a single bead of sweat dripping down his forehead. “The very rare long-tailed capybara.”
” Very very rare, oh yes.”
The escaped capybaras have come under the spotlight after a daring escape early Tuesday morning, and zoo officials have found the need to meet the greatly increased interest in the animals over the past few days.
“What excites me is that most people have still never even seen a capybara,” said Luminare, standing in front of the two patch-haired abominations. “Which means that they will be simply elated when they see these animals that we have here. These animals that are capybaras, with no doubt in my mind.”
Visitors to the zoo are reporting that the animals are not quite what they expected, mostly just making horrible screeching sounds and reaching out of the pen to grab any nearby garbage.
“Why is that one with only one eye staring at me like that?” a young child was overheard asking zoo employee Miranda Sing.
“Because you don’t last long in the tunnels if you let a meal escape,” said Sing, preparing a long reach cattle prod.
According to sources, High Park Zoo officials are feigning any knowledge of how their stock of bison and llamas could have been decimated by bubonic plague.
