“Take James Herriot, put him in inner-city Los Angeles in the early 1990s, and have him work on snakes, lions, and birds instead of farm animals—that’s Doug Mader’s story,” says Roark, founder of the ...

The octopus is still, suspended upside down on the glass wall of her tank, just below water level. Her eyes are shut, her eight arms knotted snug behind her head, her pale-gray body gently pulsing.