Dave Thomas, the Oregon Zoo's longest-term employee, says Metro's firing Monday of director Kim Smith and Mitch Finnegan, chief veterinarian, struck the most devastating blow to staff morale he's witnessed in his 40 years with the organization.

"The staff up here is just overwhelmed," says Thomas. "There are tears everywhere."

Thomas, who leads behind-the-scenes zoo tours after 38½ years caring for primates and other animals, says the firings are the most pointed example of a vast cultural and knowledge gap between the zoo and the regional government operating it. Though each organization needs the other, he says, tensions between the two have ballooned as each has grown bigger and more ambitious.

Metro officials initially declined to disclose their reasons for firing Smith and Finnegan, citing personnel policy. Rumors about potential causes flew around the zoo. By Wednesday, Thomas says, word spread about a quiet investigation into the death early this year of Kutai, an ailing orangutan. Thursday, Metro issued a statement saying the dismissals were related to the death.

The investigation, which Thomas says was prompted by a zoo employee's grievance and conducted not by a board of veterinary examiners but by outside attorneys whom Metro officials declined to identify to staff, found that:

• Standard operating procedures and best practices were not followed.

• Lapses in procedure and protocols were tolerated.

• There was a lack of trust regarding the accuracy of reports and whether important facts regarding animal care were omitted.

As lead primate keeper, Thomas had worked more closely with Kutai than anyone else at the zoo since the orangutan arrived in Portland in 2001. In a broad-ranging interview late Friday, he discussed what he knew of the veterinary staff's extensive efforts to save Kutai from a baffling illness, and talked about the investigation, dismissals and the firings' shattering effects on employees throughout the zoo.

Dave Thomas says he and fellow staff members are reeling from the firings.

Thomas has prior experience with dark days there. In May 2012, Smith told him he could resign or be fired after one safety protocol breach in the primate enclosure. He chose to resign.

Many zoo employees were outraged and saddened at the loss of their respected senior colleague, which came on the heels of a mass exodus at the zoo.

From January 2010 through June 6, 2012, 41 regular-status employees from a total of about 157 parted company with the zoo. That's nearly twice as many as left the Oregon Convention Center, which at the time had 184 regular-status employees and, like the zoo, is operated by Metro. At the zoo, 17 staff members resigned; eight retired, weren't medically able to work, or died; and 16 were terminated. By comparison, 22 people left the convention center, seven of who were terminated.

Such an outcry followed Thomas' departure that Smith offered him the opportunity to re-join the staff in his current capacity giving behind-the-scenes tours.

Because of his close connection to Kutai, Thomas requested and was granted access to observe three surgeries that preceded the animal's death. Unlike his predecessor, Finnegan routinely allowed keepers and curators closest to an animal to watch surgeries and other procedures.

"If he has time," Thomas says, "he'll pull away and let them see what's going on, talk about his concerns and about where this (medical situation) is headed. If we lose an animal, he'll be concerned about the keepers. The pathology report is emailed to the curators and the keepers. It's an open book. This whole thing has been an open book."

After Kutai's death from pulmonary hemorrhage -- blood in his lungs -- the veterinary staff performed a routine necropsy, or animal autopsy. In Finnegan's necropsy report, he noted a technician's failure to monitor a critical valve on an anesthesia bag during Kutai's final surgery might have led to the hemorrhage. Other factors, such as a ruptured blood vessel during surgery, also could have caused it.

Thomas says that after the pathology report arrived several weeks later, Smith and deputy director Chris Pfefferkorn investigated the circumstances surrounding the death and discussed whether disciplinary action should be taken. They concluded, he says, that they were comfortable with the way Finnegan handled the situation.

The unnamed zoo employee who filed the grievance apparently disagreed, taking his or her concerns to Metro.

Kutai observes his world in the zoo's Red Ape Reserve exhibit.

The ensuing investigation and the fact that it was conducted by lawyers rather than veterinary experts, Thomas says, illustrates the disconnect between Metro's necessarily bureaucratic culture and that at the zoo, where animals are the No. 1 focus.

Thomas is far from anti-Metro. He figures he's among the last remaining zoo employees who, on his own time, went door-to-door in 1978 campaigning for passage of Ballot Measure 6, which established the regional government.

The zoo, then managed alternately by the Portland Zoological Society and the city of Portland, was financially strapped. "If we were going to do anything to improve the zoo," he says, "we needed a bigger tax base." Having a regional agency take the zoo's reins would give it that security.

In the early days of that marriage, he says, the relationship was far more intimate than it is today. Metro's executive director routinely visited and worked closely with the zoo director on exhibit improvements. As the years passed, though, the two organizations grew more distant and Metro officials were scarcely seen at the zoo.

Metro clamped down on zoo operations after a 2009 audit of construction finances found cost overruns and weak oversight. It hired Smith to right the zoo's financial ship and lead it forward.

It also instituted many new policies and procedural tasks for employees throughout the ranks, or, as Thomas puts it, "more and more paperwork and evaluation work that led to less and less contact with the animals. ... It was so overwhelming for a lot of people, who were frustrated because they couldn't get to what they wanted to get to: caring for the animals."

Thomas says he believes that culture clash and Metro's less than intimate knowledge of the day-to-day workings of the 126-year-old zoo led to this week's firings.

Metro hired zoo director Kim Smith to bring more accountability to the zoo.

Because of the political nature of their jobs, zoo directors come and go with some frequency. But Finnegan's departure, Thomas says, means remaining zoo employees have lost a leader, mentor and confidante so trusted "he's almost like a father figure."

"His door was always open," Thomas says. "It was just such a secure feeling that you had a vet like that."

Friday, Metro advertised for a new veterinarian on the Association of Zoos and Aquariums' job board. The listing says the position comes with a salary ranging from $95,090 to $137,876. Resumes will be reviewed beginning May 30.

In part, the job listing reads: "It's an exciting time at the zoo!"

Thomas describes it differently.

"Morale is just rock bottom," he says. "I can't remember in my 40 years of service anything worse."

Yet, animal care won't suffer "because those keepers are so professional" and, he says, because Finnegan "instilled his values in the veterinary staff."

-- Katy Muldoon