Teen Halloween pranks like smashing your neighbors’ jack-o’-lanterns or egging your school principal’s house are pretty tame compared to watching jaguars rip apart pumpkins stuffed with raw meat. During the zoo’s Pumpkin Bash, rampant pumpkin destruction is not only condoned, it’s encouraged, for the zoo animals at least. In theory, the Saturday-Sunday event is part of an “enrichment program” to keep the animals sharp and on the tips of their paws. (Don’t you wish your workplace did that?) The annual zoo tradition originated from tossing the squash into the hippos’ enormous pink gullets some 20 years ago. Now families can watch as gorillas pull the fruit apart and daintily eat the pieces, while the elephants stomp on them and use their trunks as utensils. Pretty soon the giraffes will be toilet-papering the trees. Woodland Park Zoo, 601 N. 59th St., 548-2500, www.zoo.org. Free to $15. 10 a.m.–2:30 p.m. ERINN UNGER

Sun., Oct. 26, 10 a.m., 2008