Old stuffed animals find new purpose at landfill

Dan Shearer

Green Valley News

The county dump is turning into a zoo and nobody seems to care.

In fact, they’re enjoying it.

Stuffed animals started showing up in trees on the landfill site late last year, employees said, and they’ve multiplied since.

As of this week, you’ll find a monkey, lion, fish, parrot, bumblebee and Mickey Mouse strung up in desert trees and bushes on the road leading to the landfill. A littler farther down is what appears to be a life-size sheep resting on top of a hill.

“Every time I look up I see another one,” said Carl Morgan, who drives a water truck at the landfill on La Canada, about a mile south of Sahuarita Road.

“We’ve been getting a lot of compliments on it,” he said. “People have been coming by and taking photos.”

The animals are in good shape and relatively clean, considering where they live. They’re also a diversion for kids who otherwise wouldn’t have much to look at, one worker said.

Morgan said he thinks the biggest one, a huge monkey with two babies on its back, fell out of a vehicle on the way to the dumping area and somebody put it up in a tree. Others soon followed, and a menagerie was born. The latest addition, the sheep on the hill, showed up about six weeks ago, said Joe Marti, another landfill worker.

“People get a kick out of it,” he said.