Breeding Big Cats, Tiger King, and Topeka Zoo’s Next 5 Years | Shanna Simpson

I always say we're basically working with bombs all day. That could go off at any moment. It can kill you if you make a mistake. It's a very dangerous curve, though they're just they're killing machines, Right.

Like that's literally what they're what they do, you guys have heard of Tiger King.

You know what I do that stuff with my kids and my husband.

Get the little clicker thing.

Yes, Clicker, train your kids, it works.

Shanna Simpson, thanks for coming on, topeka Insider.

Thank you for having me.

Yeah, it's so good. So you're the animal curator at the Topeka Zoo. Correct, that's my job title. Amazing.

Thank you, it's a cool job.

Animal curator. Animal curator what does that?

even mean. You know? I didn't know what that word meant until I started working in the animal care industry but the industry the career field. Um, you know, you hear it a lot in museums, like museum curator, like I feel like that's where I used to hear it from whenever before I was an adult. Um, so basically it just means that you're in charge of I think is the way I define it as. So I'm over the animal care department.

So if you're a curator, it kind of sounds like you get to pick what animals you have.

I mean kind of there's a committee that decides that I don't just get to be like oh, my favorite animals in the world are hippo. We're going to get 15. Right.

So like if you find a good deal on a parrot on Craigslist you'd be like, yeah, we're getting this list.

Like you'd be like, yeah, we're getting this. Oh yeah, that's not shady at all. No, yes and no, I mean we do have a committee. I mean we can make suggestions, but we have a whole committee that makes those decisions, so nice you know we got to make sure it's ethical you know, right how many animals on craigslist.

How many animals does the pika zoo?

have um, so we have about 380 ish animals give or take. Now. Once you start counting each individual then it gets a lot more, because we have a whole invertebrate zoo like a bug zoo. So we've got cockroaches and a stick insects. And so, if you, start counting all of those, it gets a little crazy, so we count those as a colony basically, so around 300, 350, 370.

So like the collection of bugs is one thing, exactly, cause then it could be a little crazy.

We'd have, like a lot of animals, a million.

Yeah exactly.

So, yeah, we have a lot of animals, um, and we have about 25 zookeepers that oversee all of those different animals, and then two animal care supervisors and then two animal curators wow, that's the animal department, like broken down into different departments like so and so yeah pretty much.

I mean, we've got you know, because there are animals that are very specific, like specified. Like you, like joe schmo, can't just come work with an elephant, right, right, so you have to have a specialized, you have to be trained a certain manner. Same thing with our big cats, with our great apes Um, they're just, they're dangerous, you know, they're very specialized care. So you do have to have a level of training with that. So you can't just pop in and just, you know, feed elephant, um, but so we do that. We have specialized keepers that work with certain animals and then we have what we call relief keepers, and those keepers go everywhere and fill in for vacations and days off, and so those are really versatile keepers. They're really important too. So that's basically how we run it. It's pretty, pretty, pretty easy.

That's awesome, yeah, wow. So give us your backstory. How did you get into working at a zoo?

get into working at a zoo. How did you get here? Yeah, okay, so I was raised in Roswell, new Mexico. That's where I was born and raised, and I just we went on a family vacation to SeaWorld San Antonio when I was in second grade and I saw the girl you know flying off of Shamu's face and I was like I have to do that.

Like that is what I have to do. I mean that's like everybody's story who's been to SeaWorld when they're little right?

Yeah, so anyway, I just I never got out of that. You know, being from New Mexico, obviously I had to relocate. So I got my college, I got my degree in psychology and zoology, which I know people are like psychology, but you actually deal with a lot of training and classical conditioning with animals. Wow. So that degree has been I mean clutch when working with animals. Um yeah, weird Right. So yeah, training, conditioning, you know, like positive, negative, feedback, reinforcement, like all that.

This is the same stuff you do in psych one-on-one Um. So then you can teach me some tricks for my kids, you know what I do that stuff with my kids and my husband. Yeah, get the little clicker thing.

Yes, clicker, train your kids.

It works. I tell you what. I tell you what.

Yeah, the jokes are endless with that, but anyway. Then, as soon as I graduated college, I got a job at an aquarium in Miami Florida, where I worked with killer whales and dolphins for eight years.

Yeah, I was a killer whale trainer. It was like every kid's dream. It was like every kid's dream, isn't it? It's so amazing.

It was so cool. It was obviously just incredible. Like I loved it and I met my husband out there and we had our first daughter out there, and then we got transferred to Topeka and he's in the Coast Guard and so there's a Coast Guard base here which nobody knows about apparently.

Because, there's no coast. There's no coast. What is he guarding? I don't know what he does all day. Which coast is he guarding exactly? Lake Shawnee. Lake Shawnee is very dangerous.

There's an imminent threat coming from Lake Shawnee. You never know, with Lake Shawnee, it seems shady, doesn't it? But anyway. So yeah, we moved here and I got the job at the zoo pretty shortly after and been here ever since, so I would imagine a place like Topeka and I don't want to shortchange Topeka Zoo, because actually Topeka Zoo, I think, is like an incredible. It is.

Like you know, people come to Topeka. They're shocked how amazing our zoo is. I agree, yeah, and we love the zoo. Our kids love the zoo. Yeah, it's amazing. But I got to imagine, like someone coming from like that high end kind of a place, they had to have been like amazed. Oh my gosh, how did we get someone like you here?

It's a totally different world. I mean, it's so different but yet it's so similar. You know working with dolphins and killer whales to working with land animals. I always say that I'm dry now, like I was wet all day. Then you know you're in the water constantly.

So that is the main difference. I mean, the animals are pretty much the same. You know, you have to learn, train them the same way you interact with them. The safety is the same. Um, so it's, it's pretty similar. But yeah, coming here I really thought that I wasn't going to work. You know, we had our, our daughter. She was really young, and so I was like you know I'm going to be a stay at home, mom while we're in.

Topeka and and just hang out with my daughter, me and was like hey, the zoo down there is hiring and I was like seriously what Like should. I apply, so I just I took my daughter to the zoo, like all the time we were members Like and I just I never really saw myself working at a zoo. I was. I was a dolphin trainer.

Like.

I worked with killer whales. That's what I did.

Yeah, it was water. Like yeah, I can't see myself at the zoo. So I was like you know what? I'm just going to apply, just see what happens. And that was 14 years ago. I got the job, wow, and I love it, have you been now at a zoo longer than you were.

Okay so you're officially a zoo person. Safety protocols, different things that you have to do with the zookeepers, I'm assuming, absolutely priority. What are? What do some of those look like? And then follow-up question what are some of the more dangerous exhibits? Yeah, zookeepers, absolutely so I mean safety obviously is.

That's a good question. Uh, safety is a top priority. I mean it has to be, because we're basically I always say we're basically working with bombs all day that could go off at any moment. You know they're unpredictable, they can kill you if you make a mistake. Uh, so it's. It's a very dangerous curve. It is, if you look at the statistics, a lot of injuries, a lot of deaths. Uh, yeah, yeah, um, you know, and coming from a Marine mammal background, you know those animals don't follow you, they stay in the water. So there's not really like a level of security. I mean, obviously you have to be careful when you're in the water. There's safety protocols when you're in with them, right, um, that's a whole other ball game.

But you know you don't have to worry about locks and shutting gates and you know containment right because they're in water, they're not going to hop out on the land and fall right down the stairs um, so with this I don't know I'm finding Nemo. They did that sounds terrifying, doesn't?

it In finding Dory. They escaped, that's true.

That's true. Well, I think your job, then, is to not provide any large plastic bags.

Right All plastic bags For container reasons. You cannot have them because you might escape.

But yeah, we actually had an incident at our zoo in 2019 where a keeper just made a mistake found where a keeper just made a mistake, found herself inside with a tiger and got. Yeah, I got beat out pretty bad by the tiger. She did not die, thank God it was. We got very, very lucky. So in 2019, we changed all of our safety protocol. So at that point we went to what we call two key, two lock systems. So basically it means there's like a blue lock on one of the doors and a green lock on that same door, and so you have to have two people to open that door.

So, anytime you want to open a barrier between you and a dangerous animal, you have to have a certain level of, and not every animal, not every animal, no, just the ones that can kill you. So, tiger, tiger, lion, african painted dog, cougar, bear, orangutan, those are where we do the two key to lock?

So yeah, one person has one lock one person, another Correct. So you can't, like I, even if I wanted to open up a door, I can't. I can't open a door without my coworkers, so I'm just going to pop in real quick.

I'm just like I'm going to go in here and clean this yard real quick. Well, she had forgotten that she hadn't secured the tiger inside and he was out there, and so she walked in with him, and so it's just human error, you know, you have to find ways, just like in you know airline industry surgeons you know you have to find ways to lower risk and lower do risk mitigation yeah, it makes sense like if you're around that every day, you can maybe take for granted oh yeah, you know.

so you get used to it and you get your routine and you're just opening doors and you're just Right.

And, as a person who like attends a zoo, it's easy for me to think like well, they're in captivity, they're probably all tame, yeah Heck no, they're not.

Yeah, they're not. No-transcript, not like that I'm. Some of them are doing me wrong, um, but it's most of the time just accidents. You know, an elephant backing up on a keeper and elephant, you know, a person getting pinned or stepped on right um so, but about 10 years ago the switch kind of started to happen, where big cats started to to be the winners of that killing more keepers and other animals?

is that because people were getting more on top of like being careful around elephants?

I think so. I think a lot of safety protocols went into effect from our governing bodies and stuff like that. You know, a lot of rules came down because there was a lot of. There was about one or two keepers killed a year by elephants for a while there. Yeah, it's crazy. So now big cats are the tigers actually are the winner right now for killing more keepers, and I think I think it's just um mistakes, human mistakes, just like our mistake here so is the person okay, like, do they have any permanent injuries?

yeah, she, she is okay, she survived. But yeah, she does have some pretty substantial permanent injuries from it.

So so yeah, I mean they're just they're killing machines, right like that's literally what they're, what they seem like they would be. I mean, there's a lot of dangerous animals in the world, but they would definitely be like top five animal I would not want to come across in the wild I think that's wise yeah, because they're secretive, I mean you don't hear them, you don't know they're there yeah and so they're already like on you you have zero chance.

I've seen the jungle book.

I know what to expect. Yeah, he's crazy. What's his?

name, or like what is his name?

oh, that bad tiger it's so scary it's like right on the tip of my toe me too it'll come to us in a minute watch some kid will watch this.

Yeah, I know what it is. Is that something where you you blame the tiger, or is it like absolutely not okay?

nope, tiger did actually. The tiger did not even do what he was supposed to do like he did not.

He didn't kill her.

Yeah, usually tigers go in for the kill shot. And he didn't he more like played with her you?

know he was kind of like what are you doing in here, like this is weird, like, if you know, because we had a lot of witnesses, obviously, and his behavior.

Oh, it was during we were open. Oh my gosh, so they're like kids well I mean they ushered them away, right, yeah, we had, the public was there and oh my god, it was horrible, it was probably top five worst day of my life wow, you were there well, I was actually um at my daughter's um softball game in atchison, kansas, and I got the call. I drove back, obviously 90 million miles per hour on the highway, and so I had to deal with all the aftermath.

Yeah, I was like bye. Can you guys take your Uber?

I gotta go Uber.

So, yeah, right, no, you'll be fine.

So I had to come back and deal with the aftermath of it, so it was pretty it was horrible, but we got really most of the time, whenever keepers find themselves in with the tiger is a fatality. Yeah, so yeah, safety top priority, yeah for real. So when it comes to the topeka zoo, because I've probably been to two or three zoos in my entire life, yeah, you know, I don't have much to compare it to. Where is topeka excelling and compared to other zoos, where is it like, maybe falling short?

um, okay, yeah, that's a great question. I mean, I think what we're kind of known for, maybe in the industry, maybe stuff like that yeah, we're known for our tiger. Ironically, we're known for our tiger program. We have a very successful breeding program. We had a litter of cubs in 2014, a litter of cubs in 2018. We have a breeding pair right now. That's actually what I I was doing all morning was um, tiger breeding is very hard. It's very hard. It's hard because they're solitary in the wild, so they live alone. Uh, so they only come together when the females in heat. Um, and if they come together when the females won't stick together like lions will no absolutely no.

So lions are actually the only social cat. So every cat in the world is solitary except for lions. So yourcat, jaguars, leopards, tigers, those are all solitary except for lions.

so lions are the only family really, what are you for knowing that I know? Oh, I didn't know.

They were the only ones I thought that was more normal so tigers are just really tricky because if they come together and she's not in heat it could be fatal.

It could be very aggressive they're very territorial.

They don't like being around other cats, um. So you have to be able to read the female's behavior. You have to be able to call that she's in heat you have to be able to make sure he knows she's in heat, you know, and so there's a lot of behavior reading um.

So it's really sure he's well fed beforehand. Yes, yes, he's not in the slightest hangry so it's really tricky.

So we're known for our tiger breeding. We actually have people come down here to watch us work with tigers and part of our program I have flown out to a few different zoos to help them with their tiger program. So we're definitely known for our tiger program. Wow.

Yeah, yeah, it crossed the industry. What happens when you have a litter Like what?

what do you guys do with the um well, the male can't be anywhere around. The female has to be complete feel, completely safe, because if she doesn't feel safe, she'll kill the cups, because the cups could be a liability right For her survival. Yeah, animals are savage. Have to make sure the female feels safe. Um, so we have to make sure that the male is as far away as possible, so we usually just put him outside for a week or so, so he's away from her. Um, make sure she's well fed and can nurse, make sure she's nursing, make sure the cubs are, you know, moving, make sure that they're gaining weight. Um, so, a lot of, a lot of stuff goes into it.

So that would happen in the wild. I feel like we could go down a very interesting quirky rabbit hole about tiger breeding here, but which is funny, by the way. Just like what'd you do this morning, I bred some tigers.

That's what I did all morning.

I just set up some mood lighting, Bury me in a loom. Yeah, exactly Some jazz. But in the wild would that be normal?

Like after the encounter.

The guy's just kind of off and so like she would feel safe because she's by herself absolutely and she would make sure that her cubs were somewhere safe, like she would.

She would go den down somewhere. Tiger um, gestation is three months, so they're pregnant for three months, so you know around. When she's about to give birth she goes and she finds a den or a cave or something real secretive. So we just make sure she has something like that. Here we build like a box, like a den box, and we put a camera in it so we can see her. Did you guys live stream that? We did the last litter. You can go on YouTube and you can watch our litter be born.

We had four cubs, that's awesome.

What do you guys do with craigslist?

yeah, yeah, we already established this. Like guy in russia, yeah yeah, an oligarch wanted them. It was just a box and shipped it straight to overnight madagascar.

We made madagascar but no, we, we do keep the cubs with the mom. Um, in the wild the cubs would be with the mom for about two years. You know, she's got to teach them how to be a tiger, right, teach them how to hunt, teach them how to stalk, stuff like that. Um, so she, they stay with the cub. I'm sorry. They stay with the mom for about two years and then they go to other zoos as they become adults. So we have tigers all over the world because we have three, three in 2014 and four in 2018.

so, and there's only about, I think, 68 sumatra and tigers in american zoos, and so we have bred over 10% of those tigers here at the species, just to put it in perspective.

Yeah.

Yeah, so we're. We're very important to the tiger population when did we get ours. Um well, the, the mother that had the two litters um, she was from Sacramento zoo, that's where she was born the first um. That's where she was born the first dad. The first baby daddy was from Akron Zoo. I think he was born at the second baby daddy because you know you don't want too many of the same litter like the same genetics right.

So we had a different dad.

We switched dads and he was from Zoo Atlanta and they had the four. And then the mom is actually at Louisville now and she just had another cub at louisville because, she's a proven breeder, so they gave her to a zoo who didn't have as much experience with tiger breeding and they gave us a lovely couple um who's virgins who have never bred. So we've been trying to get them to breed for the past year. So it's a little bit, a little bit challenging with this guy.

The female is from jacksonville zoo and the male is from san diego zoo how, so it sounds like, do any of animals, do any of the animals in like american zoos, ever come from the wild?

um, not really not anymore. Now the the north north american animals, that's where it gets a little bit different. Um, you don't breathe. They're here well and, like black bears, are not endangered. Um, you know, mount lions are not endangered, so you don't breed them in zoos like reputable zoos.

Don't breed those animals right, because you don't need to.

You don't need to population, exactly so there's no need to uh, but there's a lot of need for homes for orphans. So, like our black bear is rescued from alaska, our mountain lion was rescued from washington state, so north american animals are most likely rescues wow, so there are some animals for the wild, but it's not like we go collect them anymore, okay, so what are some of the most endangered animals that people maybe don't realize or don't know?

I mean, I guess you say black bears aren't in danger.

No, no idea they're threatened, they're not endangered, so it's just kind of like keep an eye on them. Yeah, the most endangered animal in North America is the wolverine. Number two most endangered North American animal is the black-footed ferret and black-footed ferret is really cool because they're native to Kansas.

They're native to Kansas and Wyoming and kind of up down the middle of the of the state or, I'm sorry, of the country. Um, and we actually are education director at the Topeka zoo. He runs the whole black footed ferret conservation program for all of Kansas. So Topeka zoo has a real? Um involvement in black footed ferret conservation. So it's pretty cool, yeah, and we actually have one at the zoo.

I'm trying to picture what a wolverine even looks like. Oh man, that's so cool.

They're aggressive and they're cool and they look nothing like the x-men character, by the way does not do the wolverine justice.

So, yeah, those are the top two north american ones as far as our zoo goes, but we do have a black-fitted ferret. That's probably our most endangered animal at the zoo. Wow um, sumatran tiger and there's about 500 left in the wild. Um, wow, elephants. African elephants get to be really, really dire over there for elephants. I mean the list goes on. We have a bird called a, called a balimina, in our rainforest, one of the most endangered birds in the in the world. Wow, um, they're really. They're beautiful. They're all white and they have like a bright blue, like zorro mask over their eye okay, they're beautiful birds.

So, wow, yeah, orangutans, we have orangutans. They're very endangered. The list goes on right, right.

So so I knew uh, zoos. Well, I guess one preliminary question is how do you determine if something's endangered? Is it just a hard number? There's less than this number in the wild.

Well, I mean there's all sorts of different organizations that track that stuff. I mean there's Wildlife SOS, there's IUCN and there's all sorts of conservation organizations that track all this stuff and they report to zoos. They report to accredited, so we're accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums or AZA, so they report to AZA, and AZA trickles all that information down.

It's this whole big world out there that nobody even knows exists.

Zoos have a lot more depth than people realize.

Yeah, that was kind of my second question. You see in some of the educational posters and plaques around the zoo things about conservation, and when I hear conservation I'm always thinking like land, like plants. The educational posters and plaques like around the zoo, you know things about conservation yeah and when I hear conservation, I'm always thinking like land, yeah, you know, like plants trees, yeah, water but it makes sense. When zoos talk about conservation, are they mainly talking about repopulating animal populations that are in danger? I mean, I think so how they?

but I mean, if you think about it, it's all intertwined right, you know water land, the animals that live in, that, in those spaces, like it's, it's all part of this intricate habitat. You know that all those parties need to be there for it to be successful. You know, like if the sharks were all taken out of the ocean, the ocean would completely be decimated so it's just like every single habitat has these keystone elements to it.

And the zoos. The zoos main job is to make sure we're educating people on that. You know, like what, what can you do to help black fitted ferrets? You know what can people here in Topeka do to help African elephants? So kind of stuff like that, because at the end of the day, that's what's really important is making sure that the animals in the wild are, that we're doing what we can so they don't go extinct.

So wilder that we're doing what we can so they don't go extinct so, wow, it's a big job, so can you jump on that? Just a little more because, like you know, sometimes you hear people are like man. I don't know if I can support something that's, like you know, capturing these animals that should be in the wild and you know, like there's kind of this feeling of like, yeah, so like but that's not really like what's happening anymore no, I mean, do zoos and aquariums have a dark past?

Absolutely Like we had to get our animals from somewhere. They used to capture them, you know, like that's not something that we're proud of, but it's something we have to talk about.

You know, that's how the zoos started is like private menageries of rich people, right and then they kind of moved over to a city kind of thing, like if you look at the history of zoos. But you know now you know there's a lot more um, thought, conservation and ethics and all this stuff that go into it. And and I mean I will say, of course, just like with anything, there's always bad zoos. I mean, I'm sure you guys have heard a tiger King, you know that was a big thing in 2020.

Um there, there are bad zoos out there. So, just you know, making sure that you're supporting zoos whose main you know goal is conservation and who's not just breeding willy nilly Like. If we could have, we could have kept our last pair of tigers and just bred every three months bred, bred, made babies, made babies, cause you know babies are money right Like people come and see babies, so we could have just bred, bred, bred bred, bred.

Oh, it's so true, people want to see yeah, so yeah.

So that's the kind of stuff you're looking for when you're looking to see if the zoo is a good zoo and if you want to go spend your money there. So that's what I encourage people to do. You know, look at, check their website, talk to people, ask people Do they always have cubs? Do they always have baby bears? Do they always have baby orangutans? That's a red flag, major red flag.

Interesting Baby factory.

And then where do go? Once they get too big and dangerous, you know um they go to can't hunt, they get, you know, euthanized they go to oh, yeah, yeah, absolutely there's a whole big dark side of you know, and that's goes back to tiger king and you know that they just kept breeding, and breeding, and breeding, and they would euthanize the cats or they would sell them to private owners. They would sell them to people that didn't have any business having a big.

Actually, I don't know. I was like the only person in my friend group who got through 2020 without seeing.

I didn't watch it either.

I refused yeah, I knew it was going to be an abomination to my career right, well, yeah, you have more invested interest. My wife went down the rabbit. She's like this is crazy, it is crazy well, I had already know about him. I already oh you really, that makes sense actually.

Yeah, we all knew who he was like his name was joe exotic, like we his. It was joe exotic zoo, like you could see his billboard on the interstate, yeah, you know. And we were going down to dallas sometime with my family and I was like what the heck is that? And so I researched him and this was way before tiger king. And then it turns out a lot of zoos know about him and yeah, he's like on a big black list.

Oh yeah, crazy he's.

Crazy. He's just noticed that he's. I mean, he makes us look bad. I mean, unfortunately we get lumped into people like that, right and it's just. But it's just like anything, you know. It's just like if you go to like a hospital, you know there's some bad hospitals.

There's some bad grocery stores grocery stores you just don't go to. So it's like so there are bad zoos, so there are bad zoos there are good zoos, so one of the things that we talk about a lot on this show is we love Topeka.

But what?

we also want to be upfront about is you know, if you love something, it's also not being naive to its faults? Absolutely so walk us through where the Topeka Zoo is failing. Okay, what's compared to other zoos around the nation, the country? Yeah, where do you think the Topeka Zoo could be better?

making sure our animal care is just continuing to improve, because things change all the time in this field. Um, if you look back at the last 25 years I mean just in the last 25 years I've been in this career field it's changed so much. So just making sure we're staying on the forefront of animal care. Um, you know, I think there's a few of our habitats that need updated. You know they're outdated and they're old, but that is part of our master plan, so I am proud to say but you know, it takes money.

It takes time.

So like there are some things that we're well aware Like I mean we can go I know I keep going back to tigers, but our tiger exhibit it works and we had a lot of success with it, but it's not great Like and we had a lot of success with it, but it's not great Like. If you go to a lot of other tiger exhibits it's not great Like. It's pretty low on the list of being a great tiger exhibit but we make it work and we do what we can.

I'm trying to think what else I mean, I think Variety of animals is good Quantity is good, I think so. Yeah, you would know, Honestly, I mean it's been a while since I've been to a zoo. I mean I'm trying to think what I would change.

I mean, if I had like some billionaire that came out of the roadworks and was like what would you change?

Yeah, right.

Gosh, that's such a great question. I mean, I would make everything bigger. You know, I would love to make everything bigger. That's what everybody always tells you. Everybody needs more space. But I think for the size of city that we're in and I mean the fact that we have elephants like is huge, is it really?

And I don't think that people literally huge. That's funny, it's a niche. I don't think people realize that Like the animals that we have for our size of city, like if you go to like Sunset Zoo in Manhattan or if you go to like Dickerson Park Zoo in Springfield, you know kind of the similar size zoos Right, our animals are. I mean the fact that we have orangutans, elephants, hippo, giraffe big cats like we have a.

We have the big amazing you know, sexy animals that everybody wants to see in the zoo. So that's my favorite thing about this zoo is our animals. Like it's. It's very unique to have a zoo our size to have those mega.

Yeah, that's good to know. Yeah, I mean, I agree too, like when we first moved to Topeka we had no idea, right, we're like because I lived in Manhattan at one point too. Yeah and yeah. Sunset Zoo is like yeah, this is what I expected.

Yeah, in a small town.

Yeah, it's fine, and so that's kind of what I was expecting. In Topeka I was like, oh dang, they have like actual animals Like this is great.

Yeah, like a lot of the big sexy animals people want to see. Yeah, it's amazing.

I got to visit Africa this summer and my son, who's five, was like, oh, are you going to see lions and giraffes? And I went to Angola, where they really don't have much of that, and I was like, yeah, they don't have that. And he's like, oh well, maybe next time we can go to real Africa. I was like, yeah, I can see why you would say that. Yeah exactly Like in your mind that is real Africa.

Yeah, exactly, that's amazing yeah that's funny, that's cute, that's awesome. So, uh, what? What would you say? Like you've been in topeka now 15?

years or so, what's?

it been like transplanting from. You're in new mexico, yeah, florida, now you're in in topeka gotta be pretty different it's totally different.

But we absolutely fell in love with Topeka. Like fell in love with it, you know, and we, we I always joke around that I thought I would live next to a beach cause I married a Coast Guard guy, but like I am so thankful we moved to Topeka. Like we moved to Topeka from Miami and the second we got here it's funny my family met us here, you know, to help us move and stuff. And we were and we were like let's go to dinner tonight, let's go to I don't know chili's. There was some well, something I want to make or some basic you know family restaurant. And we were like, okay, like we'll meet there around six. And so I told my husband I was like we need to go there around five to put our name down.

Yes, traffic and to put our name down because that's what you do in florida right, yeah and we get there at five and it's like they're like party of eight. Yeah, right, this way. And we were like wait what? We don't need this table till six but.

I was downloading Netflix episodes for the wait.

So, like you know the lack of traffic, you know, like the it's so spread out and there's and the people are so nice, Like I mean in Miami you get flipped off on the road.

Like it's a daily occurrence.

I mean honestly people are rude, they, you know, the door slams on you, they don't know the door for you. So like we had kind of, we were kind of used to that kind of world out there and coming here it was like, oh my word, like these people are so nice, like everybody's so polite, and that's what that's, we chose to stay here. My husband got transferred again. We were going to go to Alaska and he was like you know, we don't want to leave Topeka.

Wow.

We have both our daughters here, you know, and it's like we want to raise our family here.

I'm going to rephrase you said you had the opportunity to go live in Alaska. Yeah, we did and we chose.

Topeka, we did yeah. Come on, we were going to get transferred to Cordova, which is a. It's a small town. You can drive to it. I guess you can only fly our boat to it. Um, very remote, and so my husband was going to be on a boat, you know, for like four months or something. A year, you know four months, and then back for a month, four months and, and my kids were little and we were like, you know, we just I don't want to do that, I don't want to be.

I mean, Alaska is tempting for sure, but I had my job here at the zoo and I was like I love my job. I love my job and we have friends here and we have a church here and we have no traffic.

People are nice. No way to Chili's, I know, no way to Chili's. I mean, you can't get any better than that.

So we just made the difficult decision for him to get out of active duty and he got a job down at the Felderville building working with the Coast Guard, which is always basically doing the same job.

Right.

We just, we wanted to raise our family here.

We just we fell in love with it, wow.

So, and we're still here, my daughter's in college, and we're still here.

Wow. So even though there's nothing to do here, that's such garbage. I hate when people say that. I hate when people say that why?

Because, like, there's nothing to do here, if you're lame, come on, let's go.

I mean, I hate when people say that that's exactly how I feel about it. Seriously, there is so much to do here.

It is If you get off your butt and you go explore and you look online. Or you just go do something, or you just go do something. You will find something to do. And that's what me and my husband did when we got here. I mean, we immediately started exploring. You know there's, you know lakes, and there's festivals, and there's, you know, just a short drive, Manhattan, there's Lawrence, there's. You know I remember where we moved here. We moved here in late July. We went to Cider Days.

Yeah, Cider Days is sweet.

This is the funnest thing ever because you know we never got fall festivals in miami it's fall right, stupid hot still yeah and so we were like this is amazing, like we have days in florida.

That's, yeah, that's.

All we have is humidity um, you know we had saturdays and then they had the, the christmas parade. You know the little electrical light parade downtown. We were like this is the cutest city I know. So I mean we always, even to this day, we always every weekend, we just go find stuff to do right, yeah it's you're the problem, not topeka speaking of christmas, yeah, topeka zoo has quickly become known for their zoo lights.

Tell me a little bit about that oh my goodness, zoo lights has been phenomenal. You know, we had been debating doing some kind of zoo lights since like 2015 I think, and so it finally came to fruition, of course, 2020, yeah like we were supposed to open it. Really that was the first year and we were like covet hit.

We're like what do?

we do right and so, but we ended up continuing with it and we did like. You know, you sign up for certain times.

I remember that first year. Wow, so I was at the first year. You were at the first year ever, ever signing it for a slot.

I just thought that's what the way it always was?

no no, that was the first year ever.

Yeah, we were signing up for a slot. I just thought that's the way it always was. No, no, that was our first year ever. Wow.

Yeah, because we had just moved its peak like six months before that, before COVID, and so we're like, oh, zoo Lights, they must have been doing this for years. This is great, no, no.

So we signed up for a time slot. Yeah, you know, we were closed for like two or three months because of. Covid, and so having Zoo Lights really saved our budget, saved everything.

What an awesome idea. Oh man Right, that is such a hit.

And every year it gets better and better. You know, we have a whole you guys, we have a whole Zoo Lights department.

now, Really, who works year round? Yeah, we have a.

Zoo Lights manager. He, he's on staff year round. Wow, and so we have um. Adam is our zoo light staff. He's amazing and he has two or three people part of his department and he does zoo lights year round, which that's how big it is now that's incredible.

We should see if he can come out.

He also does the um haunted uh thing at stormont vale event center, that haunted thing he also does.

Vale Event Center, that haunted thing.

He also does that. Wow, so he's cool, he's a cool dude. He moved here from Topeka.

That would be a sweet job.

Wow, yeah, you guys should definitely. I'll give you his number later.

What animals are all out during zoo lights?

It depends on the weather. Obviously, it can be really cold during zoo lights, but all the North American animals are always out because they're native to this climate. So you know, the river otters, the mountain lion, the pronghorn antelope, the bear it depends on the time, but sometimes the bear's out, but all the African and Asian animals, they're usually locked inside because it's cold. Yeah, so it just kind of depends on the weather. But you know how sometimes we have those really nice days where it's like 65, then all the animals will be out.

So animals will be out, so it just depends on the weather yeah so a lot of the animals are weather dependent. So is the zoo open year round?

yep we're open every single day of the year, except for thanksgiving, christmas and new year's wow yeah, and you know those days where it's like negative 10, we're open and people still come yeah, you guys not.

Yeah, oh, that's funny. Not negative 10. We definitely come when it's very cold yeah and it's.

I mean, it's awesome. Honestly, one of my favorite things about the zoo is and is just it's. It's not like an all-day commitment which is like personally I, just as a parent, I love it.

You know, and you know, I'm sure, if you live in omaha or san diego it's like you take pride in your zoo. It's huge, you know, it takes all day, yeah, but I I like, yeah, we can. Just, we can pop in for an hour hour and we can kind of make most of the rounds, or two hours, you know, and get the round in with the kids, and then the membership makes it so much easier to pop in whenever.

What's the membership?

You've mentioned that, so yeah, so you can be a friends of the zoom member and basically that means you pay one lump price and you get in all year like for free.

for free, obviously, you pay for it, but it's just a better deal and it's like amazon prime it is, yes, it's exactly like prime.

Exactly it's to be a zoo prime, yeah um, so yeah, it's just really good.

That's what I did when I moved down here. I was a member and just brought my kid here, like you. Just, it's just a good, safe place for your kids to run around right like I remember thinking like she can just go run around and get tired for nap right, you know, we're, we're outside, we're in nature, we're off the screen, we're seeing animals, we're seeing people. It's just. It's just such a great place, just to bring your family.

That's what.

I love about the zoo is just and I think a lot of people you know you think you mentioned the San Diego's and the Omaha's and the. Kansas cities, those are destination zoos.

Right, yeah, like you go on vacation, to go there.

Yeah, like topeka, what I love about our zoo is we are a community zoo most of the people that come through our gate are from here you know, like we know. I know so many people that come through that gate. You know they're like good morning jannon I'm like good morning bob, or whatever. So like we know, so we know our, our guests yeah and it's just. It's such a unique experience than working at a big zoo. So, um, yeah, yeah.

So I'm going to put you on the spot. Take Topeka Zoo out of the equation. Okay, what are some of your favorite zoos in the United States?

Obviously it's the Topeka Zoo. I'm going to size from that one you told me I couldn't see that.

Right, I think, if you force me to say I love Oklahoma City Zoo.

Yeah, really.

Love it. What about Oklahoma?

city zoo. Yeah, love it. I know nothing about that. Oh, I love it. I think it's my favorite zoo, yeah.

Yep, I mean just I love their exhibits are so well done, they're so wide open. Um, we've done a lot of work with Oklahoma city zoo, like um, we've got a few of their animals and we've taken a few of ours to them and so we've worked with them a lot. So I know their staff and their staff is amazing, like deeply cares for their animals, excellent training programs, so their big cat training programs are incredible. But it's just like their elephant habitat, like their elephant exhibit. It's incredible, wow. So I just I love that zoo.

Wow, so we need some big Oklahoma oil barons.

Yes To like make some donations. Can we find some of those? Yeah, yeah.

Man, we need some of that oil money up in Kansas.

Yes, we do, yes, we do. I agree that would be awesome. So, yeah, that's a great zoo. I love that zoo.

Wow. I mean usually it's hard for for tiger king except for that zoo, that's not a zoo yeah, that's ridiculous. I don't even know what to call that is uh, is there like a list of animals that you're like? We don't have these, but at some point this would be the next one we want to try to get um yeah, I mean, we, we are talking about our next big exhibit expansion, that we're doing.

Um, yeah, and so we haven't like done. You're like tell us?

um, so we haven't.

We're allowed to talk about it, but we haven't like done. You're like tell us, Um, so we haven't. We're we're allowed to talk about it, but we haven't done a big like media rollout quite yet. Um, it was actually on the news a couple of weeks ago that we got a pretty, pretty substantial gift from a um, a local donor here. Um, yeah, so our next big exhibit, where it's going to be called my world and it's basically going to be geared towards children like ages seven to nine, so around that age, Um, and basically we're going to be teaching them like this is your world.

That you live in and you need to help save it Right. So like we're going to have a big, uh new, updated farmyard, so we're going to have, you know, my farm basically like where does your food come from? You know why is Kansas so important, Like Kansas is a big producer of food, so we're going to talk about that we're going to have goats, and llamas and all those funny animals that kids love.

And then we're going to talk about my water. My water is going to have water animals, so penguins. So penguins are coming. I'm saying we're getting penguins.

I was literally. That was. My next question is how long until we get penguins?

Yeah, penguins are slated to come. Penguins are on the way. They're on the way.

And my kid is about to go into the 7 to 9 range Come on, let's go.

It's perfect. So that will be my water with penguins. We're also going to have a brand new river otter exhibit. I'm going to go back to that one question. You asked me about the worst parts about the zoo, our river otter exhibit Our river otter exhibit. Okay, our river art exhibit is too small, it needs to be updated and we recognize that.

And that's going to be with the my water next day, so cool um, and then there's gonna be my air, which will obviously will be birds, right, and will also be like primates, like smaller primates, like beamers is what we're thinking about doing. So this is going to be a huge exhibit, um, like it's going to be, you know, the old giraffe yard right when you walk in, so it's going to start there like it's going to be. You know the old giraffe yard right when you walk in.

So it's going to start there and it's going to go smack dab through the whole center of the zoo. So it's going to be incredible, huge undertaking.

So it's probably like a mix of in and outside. Yeah, yep.

Yep, so it'll be um about five year total to build all this stuff, so it's the biggest thing we've ever ever stuck our teeth into. It's going to be a huge project. So that's coming, wow. So it's going to be really unique. You know, most zoos are very what we call zogeographical. So that means you've got Africa, you've got Asia, you've got North America.

Well, in my world, we're basically going to blow that to smithereens, because we're going to have animals that don't live next to each other in the world, because we're going to have animals that don't live next to each other in the world. So we're going to have like otters and penguins.

Obviously they don't interact. Then you know the lemurs and the birds and stuff like that. We're going to have just really random stuff together and just kind of talk about how you know, even though there's otters here in Kansas, you also need to be aware of your water for penguins. You know kind of like tying in that conservation message for kids, kind of making it close to home but also far away.

So it's pretty cool. That is. That makes me think you know just what you said. The major strength of the Topeka Zoo is it's a community, it's local, it's like planted here, and that's what that seems like. That's kind of even draw that even more. It's like hey, look around where you are. This is where we are.

I mean, how many people are like? You know you hear, oh yeah, elephants. You know like 96 African elephants are killed a day in Africa. But like we're here in Topeka, kansas, and it's like, oh, that sucks.

But you know what am I going to do, like I know it sucks for you.

You know like well, it's like what know, whenever you do stuff to save black-footed ferrets, that there's a trickle-down effect that could help african elephants. You know what I mean like stuff like that. So, um, it's a really cool conservation message but, at the same time, very interactive. New, different animals we're bringing in, so it's gonna be cool.

I'm excited yeah, I mean man that's. That's amazing.

I'm super pumped, it's cool, so hopefully we'll be unveiling that to the public this year 2024. Let's go.

So we just reached out to some friends of ours who have kids my kids are also in this as well Awesome. But they submitted just a handful of questions to you know, kids love animals, Kids love the zoo yeah. And so these kids are asking just whatever question they're curious about to someone who works at the zoo. Okay, so they may not have anything to do with what you do on a daily basis but they're just like you know, I want to know this, okay, so I love it. Uh, we'll see how this goes, okay.

Why do gorillas smash and be so strong? That's a great question. I love that he recognized the strength of a gorilla. So gorillas, obviously, are huge, they're the biggest primate in the world, and they are very dominant. The silverbackback everybody knows about silverbacks, and they show their dominance with their force, with brute force, um. But what I love about gorillas, though, is that they do live in a family group called a troop and there is a male silverback that obviously his job is to kick anybody's butt. That messes with that troop.

Right.

So I love the aggression of a gorilla because he doesn't use it with his family.

He uses it with people that attack his family.

It's that it's like masculinity.

Right, it is so important. Right.

And it's in the animal kingdom and it's fascinating. So I mean, don't get me wrong, Male gorillas will, will kind of discipline the little ones in their troop. But if you ever watch video with a silverback interacting with the babies of the troop, it's amazing, it's adorable so it's kind of like they are big and strong and they can be scary, but they use that in a positive way to protect their family, wow, good answer thank you that's awesome I love gorillas are Are silverbacks the biggest gorilla?

Yes, wow, yeah, that's amazing. Let's keep going.

I think this is their brother. Why do monkeys swing on white, white, red-tailed hawks? Why do kangaroos jump.

Okay, I love his emotions.

Yeah, he's like why do hawks fly so fast?

Right, monkey swing oceans. Yeah, he's like why do hawks fly so fast? Right, monkey swing. There's what was the first one, that was the monkey right, oh, the monkey the hawk, then the kangaroo, kangaroo.

Yeah, okay, so why do monkeys swing? Um so monkeys most monkeys live in trees, some don't. Some live mostly on the ground. Um so monkeys that live in trees are called arboreal. There's your word of the day that means they live in trees yeah, and so they swing through the trees for a variety of reasons um to get away from predators, to look for fruit. Um, sometimes, sometimes, they do like breeding dances, you know, in the trees to attract a lady. Yeah, uh, so lots of reasons.

They swing in trees that's awesome mostly because they're monkeys yeah, that's awesome and then real tall hawk.

I love that he specified what kind of hawk right specifically the red tail I don't want to know what the other hawks.

No, no, no other hawks don't matter, but the red tail hawk, that's what I'm sure rail tail hawks are native to topeka so they're all over. So any hawk most of the hawks that you see around here are red tail hawks. I'm sure somebody told him that at some point in his life which is really cool, that's a red tail hawks. I'm sure somebody told him that at some point in his life, which is really cool.

That's a red tail hawk. Um so, yeah, I mean they fly really fast. I mean I wouldn't want to. I don't know how fast, don't ask me.

Right.

I mean, I would guess probably like 50 miles per hour when they're like diving yeah. And I mean they're very important to the environment. They hunt rodents. You know they eat mice and eat rats, so they're super important in the environment. So they fly fast to catch rodents. Wow, there's my answer, little dude.

There you go. And then why do kangaroos jump?

Why do?

kangaroos jump. This is when you cue in the video of those two male kangaroos fighting and they use their legs to keep each other and they like, lean on their tail right.

Yes, they lean on and they use their legs. So I mean kangaroos can actually be pretty aggressive.

Do they actually hop Like, can they jump really high?

Oh yeah, Absolutely have you seen the size of their thighs.

Yeah.

Like they're jacked.

Wow, yeah, it's amazing, they don't skip leg day. No, they don't.

They do not Every day is leg day in a.

Alright, next brother, I think he also has three rapid fire.

Why do falcons fly so fast, why do Tasmanian devils chew on bones and why do cheetahs run fast.

I missed the second one.

So we talked about the bird already. So, I'll skip that. The Tasmanian devil why does he chew bones?

That's what I heard. Falcons fly so fast. Why do Tasmanian devils chew on bones? Yeah, chew on bones. And why do cheetahs run so fast?

Yeah, so I don't really. I have to be honest, I don't know much about Tasmanian devil. I think I'm pretty sure they're native to New Zealand. Does that sound right? I think so.

I think, you're right.

I was like I think that's right. Your guess is way better than mine actually.

Yeah, I don't know, let's say that now look it up real quick gabe we're at testament can you verify me? I'll lie right now. Yeah, I'm pretty sure, the new zealand, um, but yeah, they're known for just being very hyperactive, very aggressive, just like the tasmanian devil cartoon yeah um, but they're carnivores, they're fully carnivores, um. They're basically like the wolverines of new zealand.

I'm pretty sure is that right yes, so they're native to tasmania, which is in australia. Okay, well, close.

Yeah, that's pretty close island over there is close, there we go um. And then cheetahs. Cheetahs are the fastest land animal in the world um. Fun fact about cheetah most cats um have retractable claws, so they can. They can put their claws out whenever they want and bring them back in. Cheetahs do not. Cheetahs are always out. That's why they're so fast they basically have permanent track cleats on. They're grabbing the ground, and that's why they can't pull their claws back in and put them back out like lions or tigers can.

They also cannot sustain those speeds for very long. So they can run upwards of about 75 to 70 miles per hour, but they can't sustain that for very long. Now a pronghorn antelope that we do actually have at the topega zoo and it's native to north america. They can actually run almost as fast as a cheetah, but can run longer than a cheetah can so technically pronghorn antelope are faster, so there's like a 30 second window where the cheetah but can run longer than a cheetah can Wow. So technically, pronghorn antelope are faster.

So there's like a 30-second window where the cheetah could catch him and then after that they're done, but then he's out of gas. Yep, wow.

Yeah. So I always like to say that about our pronghorn, because a lot of people see our antelope at the zoo and are like guys are cool, they're so fast. Um, so yeah, there's your cheetah, fun fact that's awesome the best is whenever you're talking to a whole group of kids and they're like how do they make babies? That happened to me. You want to explain that for us? You were just helping with that earlier, oh my gosh right, but like in a g right, in a g way I'm like you need to go ask your parents.

Right, right, exactly yeah.

They meet and they fall in love and they get married.

Yeah.

What do you?

say to that yeah, exactly, it's basically the Lion King.

Yeah, yeah, there's a waterfall. Yes, yeah, elton John starts singing in the background. Can you feel the?

love tonight, right, yeah, all right what's your favorite animal?

oh my gosh, he's so cute I don't know.

Oh my gosh, he's so cute. Um, my favorite animal. I think if I had I think that's the hardest question ever, but I think if I had to answer, I'd probably probably say killer whale. They're so cool Wow.

What about them?

I mean they? They live in family groups, they hunt in packs and, like they, they communicate with each other to take down their prey, which is just like as a team make a plan.

Wow.

And then they go out and they execute this plan, communicate with one another and I don't know if you've seen that video of that there's a seal on a floating ice like an iceberg, yeah, and they work together to swim really fast at the seal, to tip that ice, to get that seal to fall off, like I mean, that is so smart like the level of intelligence to figure that out yeah, so they're just super smart.

they're um, really good with their young Like. They have a matriarch society so that they have a dominant female, but then the males stay with them and so it's just, they have just a real and they're just like the wolves of the sea. You know, they're in charge of the whole ocean.

So there's a reason they're called killer whales. It's well-earned.

It's well-e earned. Wow, it is well earned, they're cool.

So yeah, they're probably my favorite animals. That's awesome. Yeah, do you have a least favorite animal?

oh, oh, you guys are not gonna like this answer, giraffe really oh yeah really so beautiful close your ears, kids, I know, I'm so sorry, you guys like they're so beautiful and majestic right, but like they're not smart, I mean it makes sense, their heads are like this big, exactly. I mean, and I have to be fair to them.

Their heart can't pump the blood all the way up to their brain.

It's so hard on their heart.

I mean, they're prey animals, so prey animals are naturally going to be a lot more skittish, so they're just very, they're super skittish. You know, we in our old where the drafts used to be, you know we have a new draft exhibit now. Yeah, but in the old barn we painted this big graphic of a giraffe so we could show people how tall they are right, and it was all black. It was just black. It was a black painting of a giraffe. The giraffes would not come back into the barn for like a week and a half, because they would. They came walking in and they saw that giraffe and they're like heck, no, that thing's going to kill me.

And they went they did not come inside for like a week and a half. And it was, like the most frustrating, like they're out there in the rain. Right, they all freeze to death because they won't go inside, so they're just it takes a very very special kind of person to take care of a giraffe and that person is not me.

Yeah.

I do not have the patience, but they're beautiful. I love them, don't get me wrong, that's not very smart.

I'm pretty sure the parent completely, you know, interprets.

OK, right, we got an interpreter here. Yeah, do you have any questions about the animals? And that's it so that sounds like the language on that movie Signs with Mel Gibson Right, right, oh yeah the animals, the aliens would make that sound.

But he asked where the hippo sleeps.

Oh, that's a really good question. So hippos are absolutely fascinating animals because they're land animals that live in the water, but they're not water animals. So, and um, where do they sleep? So that's a really good question. So hippos can hold their breath for anywhere from 18, 8 to 10 minutes, so not super long, um. So they actually do need to sleep closer to the surface, otherwise they just have like five minute naps. So they do sleep on land, typically they can rest in the water, but they can't sleep because they'll die.

And my most favorite fun fact about a hippo is that they actually can't swim. They walk so like if you ever. If you drop a hippo in the ocean, like in a big, deep ocean, they'll die. Wow, because they can't actually swim, so if you ever see videos of them swimming, it's in shallow water because they walk off the bottom and they push up wow um, yeah, isn't that fascinating that's crazy now, you didn't mention them in one of the dangerous animal category.

I did not, you're right are they not considered they're dangerous? That's what I've heard. Yeah, they're extremely dangerous.

I mean, hippos kill more people than any other animal in Africa, so in the wild they're the number one killer in Africa. Well, I guess, unless you count mosquitoes.

Right, no, that's boring. We don't count mosquitoes. Hippos aren't giving people diseases. They don't give them malaria, yeah.

So, yeah, hippos can be very aggressive. The thing that I mentioned about our security system at the zoo is that with a hippo, if you you could just walk in with them. Okay, there's no like caging the separate you know what I'm saying? Like there's the lip of the pool, so like why, would you do a double lock system?

when you could just get out of the area.

Yeah, you know what I'm saying.

Yeah.

So that's why that's not on the list. Absolutely, we do not go in with a hippo. We do not go. There's always a barrier in between us when we work with him.

So does anyone ever go in there Like?

um no, we, we move, we um. Call him in. He's like, it's like your dogs at home, like tank, and he comes inside. We lock him in his indoor area.

Is that a cleanest pool. Uh huh, his name is tank.

His. You know we had a bank that named him, oh sure?

yeah, we had already started calling him tank, so he's tank slash vision. Yeah, this is an excellent name, tank vision, exactly.

Yeah, I've heard they're pretty fast too. Yeah, oh yeah, they can. They can run like 35 miles per hour. They're wicked fast. What very fast. And male hippos can be very aggressive wow yeah, yeah, you got some video homework to look at, yeah, I know yeah, running is terrifying like they're like tanks wow, they look like they'd be super awkward.

They just look like baked potatoes.

Yeah, exactly like that's what our hippo looks like. It's a big baked potato exactly.

All right, I believe two more. Okay, um, this one might take a second. Can you say my name's, Graham? How about do you want hippos eat Um gossips? No, no, no Say what do hippos eat?

Um eat yummy.

No, no, no.

Say what do hippos eat? What hippos eat. Oh my goodness, he's so cute. What do hippos eat? What do?

hippos eat. Oh my goodness, this is so cute.

What do hippos eat? So hippos are technically herbivores, but just within the last 10 years they've decided to reclassify them as omnivores, because they've actually been documented eating their other family members that have passed away.

After they die or they kill them after they die, oh dang so kind of a vulture.

Yeah, yeah, a little scavenger do you?

have lunch now um, so yeah so they're technically omnivores now wow so yeah, which is it, but the majority of their diet is grasses and okay, stuff like that.

They're kind of like pigs, like they'll eat anything maybe I mean, I mean, yeah, but they prefer grasses.

I've seen a hippo eat a pumpkin. Oh yeah, he loves pumpkin, he loves watermelon, anything like that. Yeah, in one big bite Smash.

It's amazing. All right, last one.

Okay.

Hello, my name is Emerson. Start over, start over. Hey, hey, hey.

Hello, my name is Emerson. I want to know what elephants do with their trunks.

What elephants do with their trunks. That's a great question. Okay, so elephant's trunks is basically like a nose. It's a long nose, that's what it is, so they can breathe out of it. A lot of people think they can drink out of it.

They can't um. They would drown, they would drown. Yeah, it's a.

No, it's a nose, yeah, and then they just keep it in there and they drown, um, so they can't suck up water, but then they put the water in their mouth, so it's like a straw.

It's like a nose straw so it doesn't go all the way up, like to here it just goes into the straw and then, and then they.

Then they squirt it into their mouth, because if it went, past this.

It would be like lungs they would aspirate right.

Yeah, they die so and then I should I should know this, but I'm blanking right now. I think they have something like 20 000 muscles in the trunk okay, I've heard like it's I think I want to say 20 000, 40 000. It's some big number, an insane amount an insane amount of muscles like the amount of muscles that they have in that trunk is incredible, and they are so um. The fine motor skills of that trunk is incredible, so like they can pick up a dime off the floor.

Wow, really yes, are you?

serious, I'm serious.

I can barely do that with my fingers.

I mean seriously, they just pick up whatever they want off that ground and it's something tiny. It is so cool, wow. But they use it as a weapon. You know, it's definitely a weapon that they use to hit, you know, lions or anything that's threatening their family. Um, straw, um, they use it to knock down trees and get leaves and branches down, um, so it's a very important part of their anatomy and it is so cool, yeah the truck is so cool so I looked at how many muscles they have.

They're 40 000 40 000.

There you go okay wow, thank you yeah, wow so yeah000.

I know it's incredible. And one appendage.

Yeah, it's crazy. My five-year-old was asking what's the strongest animal on the earth, and so we were Googling it, and I'm sure there's a lot of different ways to measure.

Yeah, I was going to say that'd be hard to measure. People were saying the african yeah, bull elephant, I guess yeah absolutely because of that, because of the trunk and how much they weigh, oh yeah, I mean they can weigh up to about 15 000 pounds it's crazy, they're huge right like so big and then at their shoulder is like 12 feet that would make sense why they're the most dangerous to zookeepers and that they're not even just accidentally crush you right, you're out. You're out, because I would have naturally gone, just assumption.

I would have gone like gorilla, but they're like, no, they're like 17 times heavier.

Yeah, you know, yeah, and gorillas, like I mean gorillas are huge, don't get me wrong.

But they have like little, teeny, tiny legs. They're like the opposite of a T-Rex.

Mean seriously like if you look at their body proportion aside, their legs are so funny like so if you're ever, intimidated by a gorilla. Just remember what their legs look like yeah it's like stop it.

You have ridiculous legs yeah, unlike the kangaroo, the gorilla skips yes, agreed, yeah, they did skip like day, yeah, well shannon, thank you so much.

Yeah, do you feel like?

is there anything that you were hoping we would ask you about that we didn't ask you about?

no, I mean, I don't think so, I don't know all right.

Yeah, well, shan, thank you so much for being on. This is this is such a joy thank you guys.

I'll talk about animals anytime, any day, all day, every day.

Yeah what uh for? For people maybe who haven't been to the zoo in a while. Do you want to maybe give a shout out like yeah, so you can come see us at the zoo.

We're open every single day of the year, except for thanksgiving, christmas and new year's. Um, it's actually really affordable. We're one of the cheapest zoos in the country and we're also on social media. Maybe, if you can't get out of your house, we do. You know, facebook, instagram, tiktok, twitter x and uh, yeah, you can see, I love our tiktok. I'm actually in charge of our tiktok page, okay so yeah, so I post lots of really funny videos.

I have a lot of fun with that. It's kind of goofy, uh, but yeah, so it's just. It's just a great place to be. You know, be outside, get off the screen right, come learn about animals right, it's awesome.

Yeah, all right, well, thank you so much Thank you, guys.

That's a wrap. Yeah, sweet.