Zoe’s been playing Zoo Tycoon on her computer lately, and frankly it’s been a little bit disturbing.

None of her animals are happy. There’s a little window at the top of the screen that appears when the system has information to give you, and Zoe’s window is open permanently with a scrolling display of woe:

Gorilla #2 is not happy with its enclosure.
Wolf #9 is not happy.
The zookeeper cannot get to the zebra food.
California Sea Lion #2 is sick.
Grizzly Bear #5 needs water.
Giraffe #13 is not happy.

The in-game zoo regulating agency keep shutting her zoo down for animal mistreatment and won’t let her buy any more animals until things improve, so I showed her how to check the health of her animals and find out what they need to make them happier. So now she is easily able to identify which animals are sick and are bringing her score down — so she can help them, I thought. I was wrong.

Zoe’s treatment for a sick or unhappy animal? She feeds it to the lions. And what do you know — her score improves.

The lions are the only ones who are happy. They’ve been dining on penguin for days.