Bronx Zoo

NEW YORK - A cobra has vanished from an enclosure outside public view at the Bronx Zoo, and its Reptile House remained closed yesterday as a precaution while zoo workers searched for the missing reptile. While the roughly 20-inch-long highly venomous Egyptian cobra has been unaccounted for since Friday afternoon, zoo officials say they're confident it hasn't gone far and isn't in a public area. Its enclosure was in an isolation area not open to visitors. Once the snake gets hungry or thirsty enough to leave its hiding place, workers will have their best opportunity to recover it, zoo Director Jim Breheny said.

On television, March and April are sometimes called "the third season," the last possible period for a new series to show enough stuff to be added to the regular schedule for the following fall. Two late-season entries premiering this week, The Bronx Zoo and The Charmings, might make it. Successful series most often begin during the fall season, in September or October, or during the middle season, in January or February. But a late- season entry can still be a successful one, as Dallas proved when it premiered in April 1978 and Moonlighting showed when it debuted in March 1985.

Even those who are most unprepared for the experience cannot help themselves. The lure of the New York Yankees' unmatched tradition, owner George Steinbrenner's deep pockets and the biggest spotlight in baseball has enticed free agents to the Big Apple since Catfish Hunter bolted Oakland to don pinstripes in 1975. Some - like former San Diego Padres righthander Ed Whitson - are burned by the heat generated by that big spotlight. The Steinbrenner who paid them so handsomely also could make their lives miserable after a bad game, or even a bad play.

There's no denying it: The Bronx Zoo has more gorillas. A whole lot more - 19, while Philadelphia has four. And that's just one of many differences. Last Thursday, just a week before the official July 1 opening of the Philadelphia Zoo's new primate exhibit, the Bronx Zoo also opened a new exhibit featuring gorillas as the celebrity species. Although the two zoos are only 100 miles apart, the exhibits are worlds apart. The Bronx exhibit is more elaborate. Think clouds of mist wafting from underground plumbing.

Last week, I was in Philadelphia for a meeting and decided to take some extra time to visit the Philadelphia Zoo. Though I got in for free with my American Zoo Association membership, I was shocked at the cost: $8.50 for adults and $6 for children aged 2 to 11. The Philadelphia Zoo is 42 acres, exhibits 1,691 animals representing 395 species and, since the primate house burned down, has, frankly, a poor public image. The Bronx Zoo charges $6.75 for adults and $3 for children.

ANIMAL KINGDOM NEW YORK A BRONX CHEER FOR PESKY GEESE Canada geese are becoming such pests at the Bronx Zoo that the zoo has been shooting them, destroying their eggs and sterilizing them. "They really usurp nesting areas of other birds," zoo director William Conway said. "They're quite hard on small birds, and they sometimes carry diseases in the park. " He said the zoo has a sharpshooter, licensed by the state Department of Environmental Conservation, who killed 19 of the birds last year.

Vehicle plunges off road; 7 die NEW YORK - An out-of-control SUV careered across several lanes of traffic on a New York City highway Sunday, then plunged more than 50 feet off the side of the road and landed in a ravine on the grounds of the Bronx Zoo, killing all seven people aboard, authorities said. Three of the victims were children, fire department spokesman Jim Long said. The others were 84, 80, 45, and 30. Long did not name them. The Honda Pilot was headed south when it bounced off the median and crossed all southbound lanes over to the guardrail, police said.

Apparently unrattled and showing no signs of hiss-teria, 17 exotic snakes - including five poisonous ones - stolen from the Bronx Zoo last week were back home yesterday after police recovered the valuable creatures and arrested two amateur snake enthusiasts in the theft. A former zoo employe, Theo Powell, 27, of the Bronx, was charged with criminal possession of the snakes. His friend, Tara Taylor, 17, who lives at a city shelter in Brooklyn, was charged with burglary, criminal possession of stolen property and criminal mischief.

The "Tiger Lady's" private preserve in Jackson Township, N.J., is an overcrowded, filthy and "inhumane" compound that poses a threat to both the animals kept there and humans, the curator of mammals for the Bronx Zoo has told state officials. Patrick R. Thomas said that he believed the Tigers Only Preserve should be closed, but that if the state allowed it to stay open, it should be limited to two big cats instead of the 17 now there. "Simply put, this is the worst big-cat facility that I have ever seen," Thomas wrote in a Feb. 1 letter to the state Division of Fish, Game and Wildlife.

Vehicle plunges off road; 7 die NEW YORK - An out-of-control SUV careered across several lanes of traffic on a New York City highway Sunday, then plunged more than 50 feet off the side of the road and landed in a ravine on the grounds of the Bronx Zoo, killing all seven people aboard, authorities said. Three of the victims were children, fire department spokesman Jim Long said. The others were 84, 80, 45, and 30. Long did not name them. The Honda Pilot was headed south when it bounced off the median and crossed all southbound lanes over to the guardrail, police said.

NEW YORK - A cobra has vanished from an enclosure outside public view at the Bronx Zoo, and its Reptile House remained closed yesterday as a precaution while zoo workers searched for the missing reptile. While the roughly 20-inch-long highly venomous Egyptian cobra has been unaccounted for since Friday afternoon, zoo officials say they're confident it hasn't gone far and isn't in a public area. Its enclosure was in an isolation area not open to visitors. Once the snake gets hungry or thirsty enough to leave its hiding place, workers will have their best opportunity to recover it, zoo Director Jim Breheny said.

HISTORICALLY, the New York Yankees have been the crown jewel of Major League Baseball. They enjoy the highest revenue and greatest number of championships (26) of any sports franchise in North America. The Phillies, on the other hand, have a history of frugality and losing, with only two championships in their 126 years. But this World Series offers the Phils an opportunity to steal the spotlight from the Bronx Bombers, who've strayed from their noble pin-striped tradition. In doing so, the Yankees have committed a great disservice to the national pastime.

FULL DISCLOSURE: I've never seen more than a few minutes of HBO's "Sex and the City. " I tried to watch, I really did - I heard it was dirty, and tuned in for the naughty bits, but the show always seemed to be about clothes, or shoes, or shopping, or relationships. For sex, I adjourned to the Ba Da Bing and "The Sopranos. " The city I preferred was the Baltimore of "The Wire. " Props to HBO, though, for delivering cable's remarkable trifecta: roughly coincidental in terms of lifespan, comparable in terms of cultural impact, starkly different in every other way. David Chase's "The Sopranos" gave us a dark critique of eroding families and morals; David Simon's "The Wire" was a grimy portrait of how neglect and indifference have destroyed great swaths of urban America.

Our first 'Seinfeld' reference According to the Associated Press, David Szen, a former New York Yankees traveling secretary, was sentenced to two years of probation and fined $7,500 for not reporting more than $50,000 in tips from players and coaches. "I was wrong in not reporting all my income, and I humbly apologize," Szen said in court. "I can assure you you won't see me back here again. " You won't see Szen back around Yankee Stadium, either. He was fired by the organization in December after he pleaded guilty to filing a false tax return.

What a mess New York was in 1977. Filthy, crime-infested and nearly bankrupt, the Big Apple teetered on the brink of collapse. But what theater it made for. Across the scorching summer of that year you had, among other things: a contentious mayoral race; a catastrophic blackout; the notorious Son of Sam serial-killer case, which fueled a tabloid war between the Daily News and Rupert Murdoch's recently acquired Post; and the saga of the New York...

Now that we know elephants can recognize themselves, I'm feeling cautiously optimistic. Recently researchers from the Yerkes National Primate Research Center and the Wildlife Conservation Society put three elephants at the Bronx Zoo in front of a mirror. The elephants appeared to inspect their ears and the inside of their mouths, while one pachyderm touched its trunk to a mark the researchers made above its eye. That the elephant can recognize itself gives me a little hope after a recent party I attended.

Officials at the Philadelphia Zoo saw the West Nile virus coming their way and started preparing a year and a half ago, senior veterinarian Keith Hinshaw said yesterday. Despite taking precautions such as emptying stillwater moats every week and treating standing water in storm drains, he said, the zoo could not prevent two recent bird deaths. One of the 20 flamingos died on Aug. 30 and one of the 24 Humboldt penguins died on Aug. 31, he said, both infected by mosquitoes carrying West Nile virus from birds such as crows.

Angry home-school fans teach Penney's a lesson T-shirts emblazoned with a decrepit mobile home and the words "Home Skooled" were pulled from J.C. Penney stores yesterday. Some customers complained that the T-shirt demeaned home-schooling and threatened to boycott the company. "It wasn't our intent to sell an item that is offensive," said Penney's spokesman Tim Lyons. Zoo visitor slips into something comfortable Saying he wanted to be "at one with the monkeys," a man stripped down to his boxer shorts, scaled a 20-foot wall and jumped into the Bronx Zoo's gorilla exhibit yesterday.