Discovery Tours are Back!

This is my favorite kind of tour to give at the zoo: it’s offered every day from Noon to 2:00 and costs $20 (this includes entrance to the zoo). For that, you get a guided tour of the zoo, behind-the-scenes visits with both the polar bears and the tigers, and all the information I can think of about both animals AND plants, as well as some personal history of my life in Alaska. It’s open to anybody who signs up for it and you don’t need to make reservations: just show up, pay the fee, and off we go!

It took a bit of study to prepare for it, I have to admit. Prior to its conception, I barely knew a thing about plants. The education director for the zoo printed out a few pages of information on a handful of plants that can be found at the zoo, so I at least had that to begin with. But I love to learn new things, so took it upon myself to find out more.

The Eagle River Nature Center offers free programs to the public pretty much every Sunday throughout the year on various subjects, some of which were happily on the native plant life in the area. I attended a few of them - with my camera, clipboard, notepad, and pen in hand – and ended up getting to know the presenter well enough to ask him for one-on-one help.

Let’s call him The Plant Guy.

The Plant Guy was very knowledgeable about native plant species and took me on several hikes around the area, answering all my “What’s this one?” questions and giving me all the information he had on them. He even agreed to come with me to the zoo and led an informal training session with our tour guides. He also happened to be the president of the Alaska Native Plant Society group and invited me to several of their outings, introducing me to Verna Pratt (a local native plant HERO) and giving me all sorts of new contacts for more information.

On top of all that I did some research on my own: taking an on-line botany class, buying several native plant guides for the area, and scouring the local newspaper for articles on plants, gardening, and the fight against invasive species.

All in all, I discovered a love for plants that I didn’t know I had. They are truly fascinating creatures, and it has made my hiking all the more wonderful by opening a whole new landscape to my vision.

Getting back to the subject of the tour, I think my guests have fun with it (and me). The first one of the season is always a bit nerve-wracking however. Over the winter, with all the snow & ice, one tends to forget about plants and green stuff – so when summer finally does arrive again, I always worry that I’ve forgotten everything. I typically will go to the zoo with my books for a walkabout on my own, just to reacquaint myself with the plants and try to pick up a few new tidbits to share with my guests. So by the time I actually do a Discovery Tour, with actual paying guests, I feel more confident that I can give them their money’s worth.

My first tour this year was with a local man and his wife, as well as their guest from out of state. Unfortunately, that guest happened to be a Biologist who is moving up here to work with our local Fish & Game people – so that added a whole new level of intimidation on me, because I knew that he knew stuff I didn’t and would spot my mistakes immediately!

Thankfully, though, he was very nice and if I did make any goofs, he didn’t bring them to my attention. He actually asked a lot of really in-depth questions and got me going on some really fascinating subjects. That did make us about half an hour late finishing the tour, but since nobody had any pressing chores waiting to be done, it was ok.

I even managed to put in a plug for our Tuesday Night at the Zoo program, telling them about the speaker who is coming up from the Denver Zoo to present our first one:

“Travel Diaries of a Zoo Vet” – Dr. David Kenny V.M.D. will share animal highlights from his travels conducting research as a Field Veterinarian for the Denver Zoo Conservation Biology Department. Join us for this talk at The Alaska Zoo at 7pm on Tuesday June 2 and help us kick-off our annual "Tuesday Night at the Zoo" summer lecture series. Each Tuesday features a different speaker and topic, sponsored by ConocoPhillips and Anchorage Daily News. Admission rates apply, with no additional charge for attending programs.