Akron Zoo Akron Zoo News 2013

The zoo has added more Ohio birds in the aviary. Most of these birds will move to the new aviary in Grizzly Ridge, but I suspect some birds like the ducks and wild turkeys will stay in there. Snow leopard cub Raj has already moved to Binder Park. They were guaranteed the first born. Komodo Kingdom will likely be opened hopefully by the month’s end. The project started late, but they are on-time. Journey to the Reef is closed because animals had to be temporarily relocated for the project. The carousel is now open for the season. Muffin, the zoo’s sun bear who was diagnosed with skin cancer since 2008, is doing wonderful according to a keeper. She does have glaucoma that hinders she sight. They would never have dreamt that she would still be here and doing well after she moved into the Sherman Center for Animal Care in April 2009. It sounds like that she may move into the new bear building in Grizzly Ridge. The new building will have appropriate medical facilities for her. She will also be allowed to venture out of the grizzly bear exhibit from time to time when the zoo is closed. It would be nice for her to have access to a natural setting. I have posted construction photos from today in the Akron Zoo folder in the ZooChat gallery.

Akron Zoo Gallery
 
Journey to the Reef has now reopened. The sea apples and the slipper lobsters have switched exhibits. The false pilchards have been replaced by barred flagtails in the schooling exhibit.
 
Komodo Kingdom Cafe reopened today. Also several new events announced on the zoo's event page.

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60TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION

Dates: 5/17/13 - 5/19/13

Come sure some memories and make some new ones. Those born in 1953 or before will be admitted for just $.60! Each day we will be video taping some of your fondest memories.

Thanks for supporting us for all these years!

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BREAKFAST WITH THE BEARS

Date: 9/14/13 Time: 8 - 10 a.m.

Price: Akron Zoo Member adult - $16

Akron Zoo Member child - $13

Non-Akron Zoo Member adult - $22

Non-Akron Zoo Member child - $19

Reservations required.

Don't miss our first breakfast in celebration of our new grizzly bears. Enjoy scrambled eggs, bacon and pancakes with all the fixings in our Komodo Kingdom Cafe, then journey through Mike & Mary Stark Grizzly Ridge as our Education Staff teaches you all about these amazing animals.

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TEDDY BEAR CARE

Date: 11/2/13

Time: 11 a.m. - 3 p.m.

Free with zoo admission

Bring your favorite teddy bear and get 50% off admission. The Akron Zoo Vet Staff will be on-hand to give your teddy bear a check-up. Learn how our own grizzly bears brave a visit to the doctor. Plus a beary special visit from the Berenstain Bears!
 
Thank you to the Cleveland Zoological Society for including four paragraphs on this summer’s opening of the Akron Zoo’s Grizzly Ridge in the Membership Matters section on page 18 of in the Spring 2013 edition their membership magazine Z.
 
The Wild Prairie restrooms are reopened and have been renovated and modernized. If you have been in these restrooms before the overhaul, you will notice a difference.

Grizzly Ridge is coming along nicely. Coyote, red wolf, grizzly bear, and bald eagle view area structures have roofs and seem to be only missing glass. The fence posts are up for the red wolf exhibit. The fencing surrounds a majority of the bald eagle exhibit. The only exhibits that are not as easily to see the progress of are the grizzly bear exhibit and the otter exhibit because the otter building and are set the further back from the construction fence than the other exhibits.

They have made enhancements to Nature's Theater where the summer animal show is located. An entire new lighting system has been installed. A television has been added to the back of the set. The backdrop of the set is of downtown Akron.

Carlotta, the female Andean condor, setting on a nest part of the time where there was an egg. It may have been a fake egg. The zoo has added one before, but I have never seen her in eight years set in a nest with an egg or even look maternal. If she is expecting, Grock and Carlotta will be good parents.

There is also a new sea star in the sea apple exhibit in Journey to the Reef. The new sea star is a red-knobbed sea star (Protoreaster lincki).
 
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Here is video of Draco and Charlie exploring their new exhibit.

 
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Grizzly Ridge Interactive Activities

The zoo has a Mike and Mary Stark Grizzly Ridge brochure card out now. There is a complete list of interactive activities of the new exhibit area. I have placed the complete description below from the brochure card:

The exhibit features interactive activities that will captivate and educate visitors. Guests can fly like an eagle, slide through the otter exhibit through an acrylic tube, meet woodland creatures during cabin porch presentations, dig for artifacts, paddle in a dug out canoe, and get a bird's eye view from the tree house.
 
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New female lion, Mandisa, now on exhibit

by Akron Zoo on Thursday, May 2, 2013 at 11:54am

The Akron Zoo’s new female African lion, Mandisa, is now on exhibit. Mandisa, acquired from the Naples Zoo in January, will be on exhibit with the zoo’s male lion Tamarr. The Akron Zoo’s female lion, Shani, was moved to the Naples Zoo when Mandisa arrived. The moves were a recommendation from the Lion Species Survival Plan (SSP).

Mandisa was born July 19, 2008 at the NEW Zoo in Greenbay, WI. Once Mandisa arrived she went through a 30-day quarantine period in the zoo’s Roger J. Sherman Center for Animal Care facility before being moved to the lion exhibit and introduced to Tamarr. Mandisa currently weighs 289 pounds and eats up to seven pounds of meat per day. According to the zoo’s Animal Care staff, Mandisa and Tamarr have gotten along great and both lions will be on exhibit daily together. At this time the Akron Zoo does not have a breeding recommendation for Mandisa and Tamarr.

https://www.facebook.com/notes/akron-zoo/new-female-lion-mandisa-now-on-exhibit/10151446582538042
 
The Spring/Summer Map is out and Grizzly Ridge is on it. See it at the link:

http://www.zoochat.com/1214/summer-2013-map-grizzly-ridge-320520/


The zoo has replaced and added more banners in the parking lots. There is now one for each region of the zoo with an animal and the region’s logo:

MAIN (A) LOT
Mike and Mary Stark Grizzly Ridge: grizzly bear
Journey to the Reef: giant Pacific octopus
Conservation Carousel: carousel giraffe
Penguin Point: Humboldt penguin
Komodo Kingdom: Komodo dragon
Farmland: pygmy goat

BACK (B) LOT
Wild Prairie: burrowing owl
Legends of the Wild: jaguar
Tiger Valley: Sumatran tiger
Lehner Family Zoo Gardens: butterfly
 
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