she has chosen as the theme to be an evening of pelicans on the serengeti. the idea is sort of black ties in the brush. -- an evening of the allegations on the serengeti. burlap and black ties. we hope some of you will be able to join us. i want to highlight sending that i think is indicative of how much the zoo has once again become a cornerstone of the san francisco community. a key element of zoo fest is there a silent auction. for many years we had trouble getting people to donate items to our silent auction. this year we have had phenomenal responses. people coming in and saying, can we donate something? we would love to participate. my colleague, jessica, has been managing the silent auction, and we have had so many items. we're trying to figure out how to package them. to me, that underscores how community is coming out in support of the zoo. i wanted to close my report with a bit of sad news. as you know, we unfortunately lost a few animals in the past month. gene, our rino, our seal, and a bear were all very elderly and had been ill for some time. t