Micke Grove Zoo Micke Grove Zoo-Lodi,CA, USA

C

cherylgilman

Member
Since I am new to Zoochat, I wanted to tell you a little about my zoo. I have posted some pictures in the photo gallery under United States-Other category. I will post more soon.

Micke Grove is a small zoo that is undergoing many changes and upgrades. At this time we are not AZA accredited but plan to apply for accredation within the next year. We have 8 keepers and a curator and director that, as far as I'm concerned, are the best a zoo can get. I am one of the keepers and I have the best career in the world. We are always looking to make the publics experience educational and fun. As we work, we try to communicate with them as much as possible and give them as much information as possible.

Right now we have some major construction going on. The area will be our new Asian Trek with a new snow leopard, asian small clawed otter and mongolian gerbil exhibit. For some reason I am the most excited about the gerbil than the rest of them. But I do look forward to all of it. Soon we will be reconstructing our spider monkey and gibbon enclosures, so we are looking for new ideas for that. Right now I am in the middle of renovating our amphibian exhibits in the Madagascar area we call An Island Lost In Time. I will get some good before and after pictures very soon.

Although our zoo is small, we have a large amount of visitors year round, as we are nestled in a popular county park. Our master plan was just recently approved by the county board of supervisors which will allow our zoo to grow significantly over the next 20 years. The Asian Trek is part of phase one of the master plan. The expansion of the zoo has the public and zoo staff very excited. We involve the community and their opinions in many of our decisions. The media has been both friend and foe as I'm sure it is for all zoos, however lately they have been terrific and covered many of our improvements. As a result we have had the largest attendance this year than we have had in the last five years.

I would like to encourage you to look at the photos in the gallery and would love some feedback. I am very proud of my zoo and want to share it with everybody. Questions and comments are always welcomed.:D
 
Thanks a lot for the informative posting Cheryl! Do you have any numbers for us ZooChatters? The size of the zoo in terms of acres, number of animals, and annual attendance are three statistics that I'd be most interested in.:)
 
Very glad to have you join us, especially as there aren't that many zoo staff members on the forum (that I know of). Also very glad to hear of all the improvements. As a cat lover, I would be interested to see what the new snow leopard enlcosure will be like, since that is the one big cat that seems to get consistently sub-standard exhibits here in the U.S.
 
@CherylGilman - There is a thread to request new zoos that are not listed to get their own listing ("New Photo Gallery Request Thread 2"). I have submitted Mick Grove to the moderator just now, so watch for it in a day or two. Once it's there, you can post news in your own zoo's listing instead of the "general" category.
 
I haven't been to Micke Grove for several years, sounds like it's worth a trip back, especially after some of the construction is completed. I remember it being small, but friendly.
 
snowleopard said:
Thanks a lot for the informative posting Cheryl! Do you have any numbers for us ZooChatters? The size of the zoo in terms of acres, number of animals, and annual attendance are three statistics that I'd be most interested in.:)
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I will be more than happy to provide those numbers for you. In fact I'll get them tomorrow when my supervisor comes in. He loves to share info about our zoo just like I do.
 
snowleopard said:
Thanks a lot for the informative posting Cheryl! Do you have any numbers for us ZooChatters? The size of the zoo in terms of acres, number of animals, and annual attendance are three statistics that I'd be most interested in.:)
Click to expand...
I will be more than happy to provide those numbers for you. In fact I'll get them tomorrow when my supervisor comes in. He loves to share info about our zoo just like I do.
 
Arizona Docent said:
Very glad to have you join us, especially as there aren't that many zoo staff members on the forum (that I know of). Also very glad to hear of all the improvements. As a cat lover, I would be interested to see what the new snow leopard enlcosure will be like, since that is the one big cat that seems to get consistently sub-standard exhibits here in the U.S.
Click to expand...
I'll get some pictures of the construction for you. Right now it's just service buildings and life support but the actual exhibit construction should start in a couple of months. This exhibit is supposed to be very naturalistic. The designer did a lot of research on the snow leopards habitat and he has excellent experience, so we are looking forward to see what will develope.
 
Arizona Docent said:
@CherylGilman - There is a thread to request new zoos that are not listed to get their own listing ("New Photo Gallery Request Thread 2"). I have submitted Mick Grove to the moderator just now, so watch for it in a day or two. Once it's there, you can post news in your own zoo's listing instead of the "general" category.
Click to expand...
Thank you very much
 
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