All zoo people will, at some point, say: “I love animals.”

This is true for Sean Greene, an all-around zoo man who for the last 18 months has run Mill Mountain Zoo, a 55-year-old institution that has not always been easy to love.

He started in March 2006. The zoo was in debt and a visitor left in tears at the sight of rundown exhibits. That year, a Japanese macaque escaped and a well-loved tiger died. But most of all, the mountaintop attraction suffered the impression — underlined by a subpar accreditation review that summer — that it was too small and dilapidated.

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