Get Behind the Scenes on Unique ZooMontana Tour

By Gloria Wester

A standard trip through ZooMontana

at the I-90 443 Zoo Drive Exit is a walk through the zoo habitat area with a map in hand. Interpretive plaques and panels give information about the animals.

Now, zoo personnel are offering an up-close, behind-the-scenes Zooper Tour of the zoo, led by the people whose vocations center around the animals and botanical garden they care for.

Director of the Science and Conservation Center Dr. Jay Kirkpatrick led a group on the new tour recently to demonstrate the kind of experience that is now available to groups of up to 10-15 adults at a price of $250 per group. The three-hour tour winds through the now completely paved 1.5-mile trail system where the residents are animals suited to northern climates — individual animals that are deemed unable to survive in the wild. A dozen groups have taken the tour and give it positive reviews. One Rotary Club member on the tour stated that she was originally opposed to the idea of the zoo, but after the Zooper Tour, felt refreshed and encouraged about ZooMontana.

The zoo is on a pace to serve 90,000 to 100,000 visitors this year. The tour is designed to add a few more visitors on a high quality tour that provides participants with a comprehensive understanding of the workings and missions of a modern zoo and botanical garden.

Along the trail, Kirkpatrick pointed out the bristle-cone pine tree in the botanical

garden, which should enjoy a long life at the zoo, since it is one of the longest-living organisms on earth.

Kirkpatrick explained that the zoo partially opened with the otters as the main attraction in 1993, and officially opened in 1995. Though some of the original animals have died of old age at the zoo, in the past years, “We have added young animals and have moved from a ‘geriatric’ zoo to a ‘pediatric’ zoo,” he said.

On the private tours, Kirkpatrick takes time to relate history related to the zoo grounds. For instance, the Nez Perce tribe, on their flight from Idaho, through Yellowstone Park, and on their way to try to escape into Canada, followed Canyon Creek right through the zoo grounds before General Sturgis and his troops caught up with them north of Laurel at the Canyon Creek battle site.

Kirkpatrick shares the mystery of why Captain William Clark and his party had so much difficulty finding cottonwood trees large enough to make canoes in 1806. That story leads into the zoo management plan to remove Russian olive trees and other vegetation that has encroached on the zoo grounds.

Bruno the grizzly bear joined the zoo animals in his habitat that was completed in the spring of 2008. A crowd-pleaser on any tour, Bruno and his holding facility reveal how the zoo is operated by its scant 10-15 employees, whose job it is to make sure the animals are “enriched” with a variety of activities. The bear’s keeper Krystal Whetham even lets Bruno paint on paper with a daub of tempera paints she slides into his holding area. Bruno shows that he has adapted to his new home, she explained. He no longer paces back and forth as he did when he arrived.

An animal keeper showed how he enriches the wolverine’s area to get her to show herself. The shy critter is rarely visible except in winter. And Zoo Curator Travis Goebel talks about the Siberian tigers who have been at the zoo for a few years and the challenges of making their lives as enriched as possible in a zoo setting.

One of the greatest discoveries on the private tour is the ZooMontana Science and Conservation Center, which will mark its 12th anniversary Aug. 28. Hidden from view on the northwest corner of the 70-acre zoo grounds, the center supplies over 4,000 contraceptive doses to 110 zoos worldwide from Perth to Jerusalem.

If you go on the private tour, you will find out dozens of information gems like these:

The fisher is the only natural enemy of the porcupine.

Tigers can catch house cat diseases.

Bears can paint pictures.

Powder from the bark of aspen trees is a natural sunscreen.

Peacocks and peahens leave on a regular basis, but always return.

Other eagles roost with the two zoo eagles during the winter.

Winter is the best season to view the animals.

To sign up for a tour, call Jenny at the zoo at 652-8100 or visit zoomontana.org.