"Welcome to the At-Least-Semiannual Reorganization!  Glad everyone could make it, because we have some very important issues to address here.  Our main goals are to cut costs, improve efficiency, and fill in some weak areas.  First, we're laying off all of the hippos.  There are too many large herbivores. "
    "Hey! Why us?" objected the hippos.
    "Because you're a bunch of lazy good-for-nothings!  Spend the whole day lounging around the beach yawning!"
    "Now, wait just one minute, Leo!" objected one hippo. "You'll be leaving a great big hole in the ecology if you do that!"
    "Not at all," responded Leo smoothly. "I'm reassigning the gorillas to your niche.  The layoffs will be a big cost cutter.  Now, about improving efficiency.  We need to specialize more.  A particularly weak area is predation.  We have a poor balance between predation and scavenging.  To address this weakness, we're going to designate specialized groups for predation and scavenging.  From now on, the hyenas will only scavenge."
    "Who died and made you king?" piped one hyena.
    "The lion is King of Beasts, Hi" said Leo.
    "Oh, yeah?" retorted Hi. "Well, you guys tried to pull the same thing last year about this time."
    "Yes, I remember," said Leo. "That was a bad idea."
    "Then, two months later, you scrapped the whole thing and put us back on mixed predation and scavenging."
    "Correct," said Leo.
    "So why are you doing it again?"
    "Now, it's a good idea."
    "I don't get it," said Hi. "What's the difference?"
    "Timing, Hi, timing."
    "Well, we like fresh food once in awhile," complained Hi. "Why don't you let the vultures do clean up?  They like it."
    "Specialization!" Leo repeated. "It's inefficient to split time between predation and scavenging.  Just when you're about to pull down an antelope, you have to run off and finish off a rotting carcass before it goes bad.  Or worse.  Then the antelope gets away.  That's why we aren't making our goals.  You've got to leave the predation to predation specialists."
    "Well, why us?" groused Hi.
    "It's not just you," said Leo placatingly. "You didn't give me a chance to finish!  The cheetahs are being reassigned from predation to scavenging, effective immediately."
    "Wha-a-at?" yelped the cheetahs. "We're the best predators ever!"
    "Phooey!" spat Leo. "You aren't even proper cats!  Just look at those unretractable claws!"
    "They are, too, retractable!" protested the cheetahs. "Anyway, you aren't going to have enough predators!'
    "Yes, we are!" countered Leo. "The elephants are going to hunt the giraffe!"

     "And there you see the famous Unemployed Hippos queued up at the Nairobi Unemployment office," said the guide.
    "Um, what are those gorillas doing in the river?" asked a tourist.
    "Trying to keep from drowning, I would say."
    "Setting aside for the moment that this is highly weird, it seems that they would be awfully easy prey for the crocodiles."
    A large crocodile lounging on the bank of the river opened one eye and looked straight at the tourist.
    "Hey," it said. "We narrowly escaped having to dig ants for a living.  The gorillas are safe."