I said that House's missile deflected the worst. Or something can be made to make the story plausible. They wont bomb the entire desert, they might miss something. And you also forget, Ghouls live for hundreds of years. If just a few of the animals survived, they would all go crazy eating each other and all the food that has been stockpiled. Food stands, buildings full of food, zookeepers, other animals, and plants? I think they would have enough food. Complete realism in this matter doesn't seem like a huge deal to me anyway. The hostility of the wasteland is handled by being fairly enclosed... and people don't go looking around in lands full of lions,, rhinos, elephants, etc.
Even if Zeta was kind of crazy, it was a hell of a lot more fun than the boring Anchorage simulation and The Pitt. Point Lookout and Zeta's off-the-wall fun made them good. And if a game with Super Mutants, crazy robots, Aliens, and massive arthropods isn't already " a bit too much" I don't want to know what is.
I want to see communists, irradiated animals of all sorts, drive things, and have fun doing it. I can sacrifice a [i]little[/]i of the realism, which it doesn't have a ton of to start with. Which I am fine with! Some real, some funny and crazy is good.
But how would the animals even get out?
I mean, IRL they are pretty locked up in the zoo.
And I mean, if there are 12 giraffes and they all ghoulify, what happens if in 2078 one dies, then three dies in 2092, then 5 get's lost in a desert storm, and then one dies in 2118, then another in 2119 and the last one in 2142.
Point is, a couple of giraffes couldn't possibly have survived the wasteland for 200 years.
Even if they have food and stuff they can still be killed by stuff, like breaking a leg, falling off a cliff, getting killed by a radscorpion/yao guai/lakelurk/deathclaw/super mutant/cazador/giant ants/etc.
It's just not realistic that they would be able to survive for two centuries.
If they could mate and have children then it would be another deal but still, I find it hard to believe.
And why would they all stay in the area?
They would be more likely to move out of the area at some point due to predators or new breeding grounds.
So no, the zoo DLC doesn't make much sense to me, sorry.