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Experts, you half-witted whelp of a mongrel bitch, think not. Marc Bekoff, professor emeritus of evolutionary biology at the University of Colorado and author of The Emotional Lives of Animals: My Subtitle Is Too Long to Fit on the Page, puts it thus: "I would say that a lion could be — as could any other animal — but it's extremely rare, because animals who live in social groups really depend on one another. They need to be concerned with their own safety. They need to be concerned about protecting their young. They need to be concerned with getting food. So they don't really have a lot of time to misbehave.

"I guess a lion in a zoo could be an asshole to another lion — steal food or invite them to play and then beat them up — but they're not dependent on the other lion to share food or help them get food. If you look at a pride of lions in the wild, or a group of wolves, they really have close social bonds. Coyotes that are overly aggressive — mean, if you will — usually don't stay in the group. Being mean for no good reason is something that other group members don't tolerate. In humans, we can get away with a lot, because we're not that dependent on others."

Tracey Barnes, animal keeper at the Smithsonian National Zoological Park, says, "The answer really is no. Sometimes you end up with an animal that really just does better if he's secluded and if you kind of leave him alone. But to the best of our ability, we try to give them enrichment and to work through those issues."

Keeper Barnes, by the way, will be heading the zoo's team of experts in charge of Dick Cheney's post-VP well-being.

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