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| CANADA'S SOURCE FOR SKATING HUMOUR, PARODY, AND SATIRE
PORTLAND, OR-- Only eleven days after opening its new $66,000 skater exhibit, the Portland Zoo is running out of room for the people who want to see the hip attraction.
Bomber, a sixteen-year-old male rescued from a strip-mall near Quesnel in 1999, is so popular with visitors that the observation area overlooking his 1.4-acre pen will be doubled in size to accommodate the crowds. Spokeswoman Edwina Spresser said Tuesday that the zoo wants to add a grandstand to the east so more people can see Bomber's hourly performances. "Thanks to the exposure Bomber has brought the zoo, attendance has more than doubled over what it was a year ago," Spresser said. "Who knows, we may even add another skater or two." Spresser thinks Bomber is adapting nicely to his new habitat. "People like the fact that he's allowed to behave like a skater," she said. "They like that he does things with his native skateboard, and that he's not spending his life sleeping or watching TV." Unlike the sterile skater pits of the former McKinnville Zoo, Bomber has an enclosure full of ramps, sidewalks and even a mechanical moving car, which the zoo hopes to stock with angry old men. Some saplings were planted as well, but Bomber ripped them up to jump over the stumps, Spresser said. "We didn't mind, because it's what he wanted to do." Bomber's diet is a careful mix of Doritos and dog kibble. Signs around Bomber's enclosure warn visitors not to give him chocolate, fruit-rollups, or Mt. Dew. On Tuesday, visitors were particularly delighted to see him do several kickturns, fakies, backside and frontside airs. "It was awesome to see him do an Ollie," said 12-year-old Ivan Stechnek of Astoria, who was visiting the park with his friend Cody. Both had seen skaters in cities before, but not up-close and never doing board glides. "It's nice to see him in a setting like this instead 'bummed out' in front of a 7-11," said Linda Lemper. "I'm pleasantly surprised with what they've done." Mrs. Lemper had never seen a real skater before Tuesday, and given the way Bomber was hiding, she wasn't sure at first that she would. "No, there he is!" she yelled, when he finally appeared. "We saw him. We have seen the skater." Although
a protected species, there have not been activists outside the zoo protesting
the exploitation of skaters.
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