Tennoji Zoo

This guide to Tennoji Zoo in Osaka, open since 1915, turns on October 1943, when keeper Hara Haruji carried a plate of poisoned meat toward a leopard's cage under orders from wartime officials fearing bombed-open cages might loose dangerous animals into the city. You'll hear how twenty-six animals across the zoo, bears, lions, tigers, wolves, hyenas, a polar bear, were marked for death that autumn, and how the leopard alone would not eat what Hara offered. The guide follows what Hara carried with him for the rest of his life.