Valentine's Day for the Animals

This saturday was our second annual Valentine's Day for the Animals celebration at The Alaska Zoo, and I worked a couple hours at the raffle table.

We had lots of stuff going on throughout the day: arts & crafts in the greenhouse where kids could make Valentines for the animal(s) of their choice, a "Birds & Bees" tour for people 12 and older, several keeper talks at the bear cubs exhibit, the seal & otter exhibit, and the great horned owl exhibit, free Valentine's Day cake for humans and special treats for the animals, hot cocoa & cider for sale, the petting zoo was open all day, and several mascots were walking the grouds (we have a fox and a polar bear costume that volunteers can wear).

And, as I mentioned at the begining of this posting, we were raffling off a huge stuffed polar bear for $1.00 a ticket (or 6 for $5.00). That's a huge deal when you consider that if you were to buy the bear at our gift shop he would have cost $140.

They had the table set up in the green house, which on the surface of it appeared to be a good location = it's warm, it's in close proximity to other "for purchase" items, and the kids who came to participate in the arts & crafts were sure to see it and convince their parents to buy tickets. Unfortunately, the reality of it wasn't quite so good: we just weren't selling any tickets.

When the news crew came in to the greenhouse to get some shots of the kids creating their masterpieces, I decided to take the bear for a walk - thereby NOT ending up on the nightly news and at the same time perhaps selling some more tickets.

I'm glad I did - I ended up selling roughly $50 worth of tickets in just half an hour, simply by being seen with the bear and talking to the people on the trails.

The biggest surprise of the day was the birth of a baby Yak! We had no idea the mother was even pregnant, although in hind-sight we should have known. This is the third time she's done this to us. Apparently it's not so easy to tell visually if a yak is pregnant or not. Our male, however, is quite viral and can impregnate his ladies thru a fence even.