Dashing through the zoo: Reindeer Trek brings Christmas cheer to Willow Park
Move over Rudolf, it’s time for the second annual Willow Park Zoo Reindeer Trek.
On Saturday, the zoo will host the final day of the trek from 12 p.m. until 8 p.m.
“They have a Santa so the kids can come tell Santa what they want,” said Lindsey Hansen, a junior majoring in biology and a reindeer handler at the zoo. “They can come see the reindeer, see a bunch of the other animals that are on display. It’s a really good, fun family event.”
Prices are $4 for adults and $2.50 for children. Toddlers under the age of three get in free.
“We’re going to have reindeer out, and our reindeer are tame enough that kids are going to be able to come up and pet them,” said Barbara Tew, the zoo’s education director.
Reindeer Zima and Nanook are local residents; they were donated to the zoo two years ago. At the event, they are led around the park and displayed so visitors can interact with them.
“I’ve had a lot of people stop and take pictures with Nanook and want to pet him.” Hansen said.
In addition to the reindeer and Santa, the zoo also has Christmas displays in the education building and a target game in the central area.
“We’re also doing hot chocolate and cookies, and then you’ll get the zoo as well at the same time,” Tew said.
Willow Park Zoo was founded originally in 1970 as a bird sanctuary and was owned by the city until three years ago when the zoo became its own entity, said Lora Meerdo, who is in charge of fundraising. When it became non-profit, the zoo went in a new direction, she said.
“With new projects like our building — and you’ll see a lot of new projects next summer too — you’ll see a lot of us out in the community fundraising and trying to grow the zoo,” Meerdo said.
Since the change in management, zoo employees have worked to improve the animals’ nutrition and habitats, add more animals to its collection and add various landscaping projects to their lists of improvements.
“The last two years it’s just grown by leaps and bounds,” Tew said. “We just finished our gift shop, and that’s kind of a cool story in itself because we are doing it as a consignment shop.”
The gift shop opened the first day of the reindeer trek. Instead of offering traditional souvenir-like zoo merchandise, Tew said the shop sells animal-themed crafts made by local artisans.
“It’s going to be really neat,” Tew said. “You are going to be supporting the zoo by buying here, but you are also going to be supporting your neighbor and keeping the money in the local economy rather than sending it to Arkansas if you go to Walmart or sending it to China if you buy somewhere else. So that’s something that we’re really proud of.”
The trek serves as a fundraiser to bring in visitors, help maintain the zoo and feed the animals during the winter months when the park is normally closed.
“It is closed for a lot of the winter because a lot of the animals can’t be on display because of the cold weather right now, like a lot of the turtles,” Hansen said.
Meerdo said summer is a popular time for visitors, not just for families and kids to visit, but also for teenagers and college students.
“It’s great for date night,” Meerdo said. “We get a lot of couples in the summer time that come out for date night and hang out in the zoo, which you wouldn’t really expect. You’d expect more families, but we always get a lot of people. So it’s a nice, cheap date.”
Spring, summer and fall are other popular times for education programs of school and home-school groups who come to the zoo to learn, Tew said, as well as for outreach programs visiting to schools to teach.
“We do a little program with some of the education animals that we usually don’t get out for other people,” Tew said. “They’re not on display, and so they’re new to these kids when they come and see these animals, and we talk about their habitat or terrains or whatever it is for the age group that we’re working with.” Some of the animals in the education program include a couple of owls and a cockatoo, Tew said.
“They do a lot of fun education stuff for the community,” Hansen said.”You can actually meet and interact with some of the animals and learn specifically about the animals.”
Tew said the zoo will be hosting other events throughout the year, including a Starry Night in January, a Valentine’s dinner in February and a concert series collaboration with Utah State University music students in April.
“It’s so nice to have this,” Meerdo said, “It’s really just a gem — this tiny, little zoo that so many people don’t know about. It’s just a really fun place here.”
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