Zoo Express
Posted at 11:23 am April 25, 2006 by Lety Cotero
A warm hello to everyone!! Don’t you love daylight savings time?! Happy Spring, everyone.
One of the things I really like about the Children’s Zoo is the variety of jobs or programs that fall under our domain. One of them is Zoo Express, an outreach program designed to bring a bit of the Zoo to those in the community who cannot come to us. We primarily visit nursing homes and Children’s Hospital. Every week, two keepers are assigned to do Zoo Express, either on a Tuesday, Wednesday, or sometimes a Thursday. We typically select three animals per person, crate them, and bring along food/treats, water, towels, hand gel, recycled newspaper (because feces happens), and whatever else we may need to make the trip more pleasant and comfortable for the little critters. We pack our crates in a Zoo van and off we go!
These locations are booked many months in advance. We recently visited a nursing home in downtown San Diego. Resident Bob Shotwell (pictured above with coworker Sunni Robertson, holding a hedgehog, and me) has been a member of the Zoological Society of San Diego for years. He comes to the Children’s Zoo almost daily and spends the day with us in the Petting Paddock. Bob loves to visit and even brings his lunch along so he can stay longer. Of course, he cannot eat his lunch in the Paddock or the goats would try to steal it for themselves!
The residents at these facilities love seeing the animals, and we feel it’s almost a form of therapy and that’s a good feeling. Children’s Hospital is different in that, of course, you’re dealing with children. They are great to see and talk to and all of them have great questions. On the day we are scheduled to visit, all the nurses and support staff gather the kids in a playroom and we get to spend an hour with them talking about the animals we brought.
It’s always fun to visit all of the people at these locations. We can see how much fun they get out of the animal visits and we hope to continue these visits for a long time.
Lety Cotero is a keeper at the San Diego Zoo’s Children’s Zoo.
Here’s a blog about the Wild Animal Park’s Animal Express program.
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April 25th, 2006 at 12:30 pm
Dear Lety! Thank you so much for you and Nicole coming to Lions Community Manor in downtown San Diego to show us your fun animal friends zoo program. The residents and I loved it!!! This is our third visit from the San Diego Zoo and it gets better EACH TIME!!! We wish you could come every month! Big hugs and well wishes from all of us here!
Lilly Fluger, Lions Community Manor
April 25th, 2006 at 4:54 pm
What a wonderful program! This must be so fun and fulfilling for those who participate. I’d love to see something like this at the WAP! Thank you for bringing your furry kids into people’s lives and giving them (the “kids” and the folks that meet them) so much joy.
And “feces happens” …oh that’s funny. We need a bumper sticker!
Editor’s note: The Wild Animal Park does have an equivalent program, called Animal Express. You can read about it in a blog dated March 2: “Alligator Ambassador.”