Screw The Stupid Monkeys

Forgive me for saying so — because lord knows animals are so, so cute, cuddly and I just want to slurp them up through a straw — but when I see such crass grandstanding in advance of final budget votes it almost makes me want to root for the UFT to get another fat buyout . . . or for DEP to hire 2,500 more administrative staff . . . or for the Police Department to lower their retirement age to 38:

Layoffs in the city have spread from the piggy traders on Wall Street to the animals at the Bronx Zoo.

The institution is closing four exhibits and shipping hundreds of creatures to zoos and aquariums around the country, officials told the City Council Cultural Affairs Committee yesterday.

Deer, bats, porcupines, foxes, lemurs, caimans and antelopes will be pink-slipped as part of the 114-year-old zoo’s effort to cope with a $15 million budget shortfall.

“We plan to close four exhibits, four areas of the zoo . . . and we will have to reduce our collections in order to handle the cuts that we already know about,” said Bob Cook, executive vice president of the Wildlife Conservation Society, which runs the zoo.

Councilman Domenic Recchia (D-Brooklyn), who chairs the committee, was incredulous when Cook told him the loss of “hundreds” of animals would be permanent — not a temporary fix during the recession.

“It’s much, much more serious than what I even thought it was going to be,” Recchia said.

But perhaps I’m just being surly.