As I look back on this year, so many thoughts come to my mind. The majority of our open season brought many detours as well as some road adventures. I came to work taking different roads and it got me thinking about how one thing affects another. As I passed by homes that I rarely, if ever, have seen and it made me wonder about the different families and what their journeys are. So often I think we forget that what each of us do, either directly or indirectly affect others. I tend to be an eternal optimist (mostly) and try to find the joy in the world around me. Here at our Zoo, as with all businesses and organizations….it takes an immense amount of support to continue to grow. Every volunteer hour, every dollar of donation, and every moment of someone sharing their talents affected our goal.
This year, thru an amazing amount of teamwork with many businesses, the City of Little Falls, staff, volunteers and the community of Little Falls, we made our dream of having Otters a reality. I have been here at the zoo for almost 20 years and have been honored and blessed to be apart of most of the planning and building of the exhibits. Typically, you build a habitat after a lot of research and planning and then carefully find the new Zoo family members and place them in their new home. Until this year, the new Zoo family members rarely caused any issues or problems….. that is until our 3 naughty little Otters. Their antics not only kept me on my toes, they became the most and longest visited exhibit of the whole Zoo. Because they are next to our main building, we were treated to shrieks of excitement and screams of laughter at something new that they were doing! Our Zoo visitors fell madly in love with our three hoodlums and made us proud to have brought them here.
The Otters weren’t the only new Zoo family members to be added this year. We welcomed 2 North American Porcupines and 3 Red Fox. Morris and Eugene, our sweet porcupines, helped lay to rest many wives tales about these docile animals. In addition to entertaining our Zoo visitors here, they travel with our keepers in the outreach presentations and schmooze other people with their kind and quirky personalities. The Red Fox found their new home when the North Dakota DNR called about 3 baby Red Fox that had been illegally taken from their home. If we hadn’t taken them, they would have been euthanized. Our hearts melted at their plight, so the bears moved over and had new neighbors. The boys are doing well and finally starting to come out of their shells.
We hope you join us as we watch them grow and mature amongst their new family. See you in 2020!!!
(Marnita Van Hoecke, is the Director of Pine Grove Zoo and has worked at Pine Grove Zoo for 20 years.)
