“Food Zoo” Gets Served

DISCLAIMER: This is a satirical piece. It does not necessarily represent the views of the Exponent or its writers and should not be construed as truth.

Some of the Exponent’s weekly readers may remember our story about Dylan Vogel, our Commanding Chief Executive Investigative Field Reporter (respect the title), traveling to Area 51 to cover the raid in mid-September. The article stated that The Exponent lost contact with Vogel, and he was believed to have passed in the chaos of the raid. First, we must apologize to our readers, as this information is inaccurate. Vogel’s death was an elaborate cover-up to allow him to get in on the ground floor for an even bigger story. Yes, a story bigger than the secrets behind Area 51.

To understand this, let’s rewind a few months.

It was a sunny September day when we received an email making a very bold claim concerning the University of Montana’s dining hall, the “Food Zoo.” The conspiracy claimed that the “Food Zoo” had leaned into its name a little too far and started serving actual exotic zoo animals in its meals. At first glance, the editorial team laughed it off as a spam email and moved on with our respective days, since this tin-foil-hat theory reached our emails with little to no supporting evidence. Yet it was intriguing, and as the best student newspaper west of the Mississippi, we felt it our duty to investigate.

After some digging, a few interesting facts supporting the theory surfaced. For one, the university once had a zoology department. So what? A defunct zoology school means almost nothing. But what if we told you that, less than a month after the department was dissolved, the “Food Zoo” opened on the University of Montana campus? This single piece of evidence alone could be dismissed as a coincidence, but further inspection revealed more proof.

Shortly after the supply from the zoology department would have run out, poaching of African game saw a sharp increase, further validating this tin-foil-hat theory. We also began tracking planes flying in and out of the Missoula airport. One private plane makes continuous trips from parts of Africa to Missoula. Even more interesting is the fact that this plane is unmarked.

This was where Vogel came in. Following his trip to the raid, Vogel worked his way into the “Food Zoo” dining staff armed with a really good fake mustache, confirmations of his death and an uncrackable alias. After two months of tolerating the University of Montana and its tree-hugging students, Vogel, a.k.a. Dilly, reported back to the Exponent with some damning evidence. Dilly reported contact with butchered meats appearing to come from zebras, lions and hippos among other exotic animals through unloading trucks and prepping food. It looks like the dining hall’s “Mystery Meat Mondays” are serving up some interesting plates.

Now, the only mystery that remains is why a campus with declining enrollment is investing in exotic meats. All we can say is that crazier things have happened in “Zootown.”