UPDATED: 8:44 a.m. 12/17/2010

Honolulu’s new zoo director has seen his share of trouble in previous posts running zoos. Manuel Mollinedo was introduced at the zoo Thursday morning by Mayor Peter Carlisle.

“Manuel Mollinedo’s wealth of zoo and park managerial experience and his clear love for animals is sure to benefit Honolulu,” Carlisle said in a news release. “Our zoo is incredibly important to our community, our children, and our visitor industry, and I’m very confident that we are placing the care of our treasured animals in good hands.”

The release went on to say that “as executive director and president of the San Francisco Zoological Society from 2004 to 2008, Mollinedo oversaw operations, strategy and financial performance of the San Francisco Zoo, the largest zoo in Northern California. During his tenure, visitor attendance increased to its highest point in 25 years, and the zoo’s financial condition was greatly strengthened through better management practices and increased philanthropic donations.”

What it didn’t say is that he quit his job there in 2008, six months after a tiger escaped and killed a teenage visitor.

Mollinedo is credited with expanding the Los Angeles Zoo during his tenure running that organization. But that job came with its perils, too. He was in charge when the husband of Sharon Stone had part of his toe bitten off by a Komodo Dragon. The Los Angeles Times says he oversaw improvements and expansions that helped stave off that zoo’s loss of accreditation.

When he moved to San Francisco, he found himself having to put down an elephant he’d shipped to the zoo from Los Angeles after it trampled a zookeeper there.

The Times reports that Mollinedo ranks 56th on its list of 841 six-figure city pensions, at $157,983.

UPDATE: It’s almost as if the San Francisco Zoo was cursed. Consider these incidents at the zoo: A koala was kidnapped. Sheep molested. (Yes, you read that right.) Then there was a headstand and an elephant and a technician. Result: A broken pelvis. Then under Mollinedo’s tenure, a tiger bit a keeper’s arm. A year later, the same animal escaped on Christmas Day and killed a person and was killed itself.¹

Read it at SFGate