Summer Programs 2018

Memorial Day Weekend through Labor Day, Summer Programs at Seneca Park Zoo provide engaging opportunities to enrich your Zoo experience.

Member Mornings: An exclusive, members-only animal encounter from 9:30 to 10 a.m. at the Zoo’s front gate.

Animal Experiences: Learn how the animals stay healthy, engaged, and active as zoo keepers engage in behavioral training, feeding, or environmental enrichment.

Keeper Chats: Hear about the animals directly from zoo keepers and zoologists, the caretakers they most trust.

Program Animal Encounter: Get up close and personal with one of the Zoo’s program animals, and learn about the Zoo’s conservation efforts locally and globally at the Nature Connection Stage.DOWNLOAD 2018 SCHEDULEVIEW DAY-BY-DAY SCHEDULE

Join the Zoo in our move towards sustainability

April 20, 2018

Have you ever been inspired by the roar of a lion or the stealth of a snow leopard?

If you have ever made this type of powerful connection, you may have also felt yourself transition from excitement to complete helplessness. Learning about the perils of these amazing animals in their natural range, and wondering what you can do to help when you live on the other side of the world, can be completely deflating. But making an impact for species survival may be as simple as recycling or turning your heat down a couple degrees.

Join Seneca Park Zoo in our move towards sustainability. We recognize that everyone can make a difference for our planet by making some simple lifestyle adjustments.But how can recycling or turning your heat down here in Rochester help save animals as far away as Africa or Asia? Many species that face extinction in the near future face threats in their environment that we can help to alleviate.

By recycling your cardboard and paper, you can help reduce the amount of deforestation for tree-based products. Habitat destruction is often driven by the need for natural resources. Reusing these resources lowers the demand for new ones.

By turning your thermostat down a couple of degrees in the winter, you can help reduce your carbon footprint. Carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gasses cause changes in our climate, which effect the ecosystem. Disruptions in ecosystems can wreak havoc for species, causing detrimental effects on their population numbers.On April 22, Seneca Park Zoo will be joining the rest of the planet in celebrating Earth Day. Staff, docents, volunteers, local partners, and guests will gather together in a joint effort to promote sustainability and caring for our natural world. Animal experiences and feedings will highlight the Zoo’s many inspiring animals, and how you can help to save their wild counterparts. People of all ages will be able to enjoy games and hands-on activities that will create a fun and meaningful learning experience, and a nature hike in lower Seneca Park will provide the opportunity to connect to nature. Diamond Packaging – our sponsor for Earth Day, and a zero-waste to landfill organization (yes, you read right – zero waste) – will demonstrate how you can work towards zero waste and sustainability. They will also be giving away tree saplings and Seneca Park Zoo’s own native western NY seed mix for a butterfly garden so that you can help plant and create important natural habitat.We hope that you join us for our Earth Day celebration, and in our move towards sustainability. Next time you visit the Zoo, stop by our ZooShop to find sustainable products such as no-container shampoo, bins that allow you to compost in your own kitchen, and a water pebble that helps you to save water.  Check out your compostable straw and utensils next time you enjoy a meal from Eagle’s Landing Café or Crater Canteen. Watch our animal care staff compost animal waste. Take part in our citizen science programs like One Cubic Foot to learn about aquatic health and caring for our waterways. Help establish critical pollinator habitat by taking part in Butterfly Beltway. Speak to a Zoo Naturalist and ask for information on becoming an educated consumer, like purchasing sustainable seafood or products that contain sustainably sourced palm oil.

If we all work together to make some small changes, we can make a big difference for our planet and its amazing biodiversity. Use the list below to help you become empowered and take action to help save species from extinction!– Rhonda McDonald, Program Manager

  1. Recycle, Reduce, Reuse!
  2. Use educated consumerism – buy local products and follow the Seafood Watch Consumer Guide from the Monterey Bay Aquarium.
  3. Turn off lights when not in use. Replace old light bulbs with energy-efficient bulbs.
  4. Use proper trash receptacles for things that can’t be recycled.
  5. Carry reusable bags & water bottles.
  6. Avoid single-use plastics like straws, utensils, to-go drink lids.
  7. Walk, cycle, carpool, or take public transportation.
  8. Turn off taps and take shorter showers to save water.
  9. Unplug appliances (toaster, laptop etc.) when not in use.
  10. Turn off vehicles while waiting rather than idling.
  11. Turn your thermostat two degrees down in the winter, two degrees up in the summer.
  12. Avoid the dryer and hang your clothes to dry.
  13. Use rechargeable batteries.
  14. Eliminate Styrofoam – it doesn’t decompose!
  15. Compost!
  16. Eat one or more meatless meals a week, avoid red meats.
  17. Weatherize your house to prevent heat loss.
  18. Plant a tree or garden.
  19. Speak up – organize a campaign or event to educate others & raise awareness about conservation issues.
  20. Assist in a community recycling collection event.

Seneca Park Zoo partners with RCSD on first-of-its-kind curriculum

April 20, 2018

On Monday and Tuesday of this week, Rochester City School District (RCSD) 2nd-grade students participated in a new experiential learning program at Seneca Park Zoo designed to drive science, math, and English Language Arts standards.  The custom program was co-created  by RCSD staff and the Seneca Park Zoo Society Education team for the benefit of RCSD students.

Read the official press release here.Check out local coverage of the program:

Spectrum: Rochester second graders swap classrooms for Zoo exhibits

WROC: Students work on research at Seneca Park Zoo

WHAM: Second graders becoming ‘Zoo scholars’ at Seneca Park Zoo

Satisfying an elephant’s appetite

April 12, 2018

To mimic the eating habits of an elephant in nature, here at Seneca Park Zoo, we create multiple feeding opportunities for the four African elephants. Each elephant consumes about 140 pounds of food in one day. That amount of food is broken down into three bales of hay, 10 pounds of fruits and vegetables, five pounds of elephant chow, and three pounds of bran twice a week. In order to provide the elephants with such a large amount of food in one day, we separate it into multiple feedings.Each elephant has a breakfast, bath, lunch, and dinner training routine at which time they will receive a combination of the elephant chow and some produce. Genny C and Lilac can also have up to five pounds of bagels for specific sessions like their baths. Moki and Chana can only have bagels on very special occasions because we are working towards getting them to a more sustainable, healthy weight. We use the elephants’ dietary items as positive reinforcement for participating in their voluntary training sessions.

The training sessions provide mental and physical stimulation for the elephants, and they allow us to check over each elephant’s entire bodies every day. The elephants look forward to these sessions and the time with their keepers knowing the good treats they are going to get for them!Their hay is given in smaller amounts throughout the day to keep them grazing as they would in nature. We also have barrels and nets hanging up high around the habitat that we fill with their hay in order to mimic the experience of eating out of tall trees. It is also very important to provide the elephants with fresh browse, or vegetation like twigs or young shoots, as much as possible. Their favorites include sugar maple and willow branches. There are some trees that are toxic to elephants, so our staff is well trained on identifying the local trees so those toxic species are never fed to the elephants by mistake.

The elephants’ favorite food items include watermelon, pumpkins, and cabbage. Bagels and breads, although they can only be given under special circumstances, are also a huge favorite!We can also give the elephants small quantities of food enrichment items throughout the day. Examples include cereals, pretzels, oats, rice cakes, pastas, pancake mix, and canned vegetables. We like to hide these items in barrels and puzzle feeders to challenge the elephants to work on their problem-solving skills!– Jenna Bovee, Zoologist

Reforesting Madagascar one tree at a time

April 5, 2018

As someone who travels for the Zoo, developing conservation action projects and working on strategic partnerships, I am constantly amazed by the people I meet, their passions, and their drive for a better, more sustainable world.

The 2016 One Cubic Foot trip to Madagascar was no different. One of the people I met on that trip was Mahandry Hugues Andrianarisoa. Mahandry was assigned to us as a requirement for our permits to conduct research in the country. When I met Mahandry, he told me he was most interested in working on conserving the fossa, a secretive carnivore that lives on the island.As we worked on the project, we asked Mahandry about his story. He told us he has never seen trees in his hometown, and only through his dad’s stories did he even know there used to be trees there. I thought about the trees, in the yard of my childhood home, which just a few years ago were 25-30 feet tall. The trees that my father planted, their growth seen through multiple childhood photos in our family photo album of trees growing exponentially quicker than us kids. I tried to imagine not having that memory, and honestly, I couldn’t do it. How do we imagine not having something that is so deeply embedded in our lives? Living in the Northeast, we have always seen vast expanses of forests and trees.As Mahandry was telling us his story, I reflected on our 10-hour trip to the field station. Vast amounts of terraced rice fields, and every once in a while, a plot of land that had an acre or more of trees on it. The silence that occurs with no tree diversity is deafening as you travel the landscape of Madagascar. The small plots of trees that are there are like islands. Islands that biodiversity searches for in a vast sea of subsistence farms and hundreds and hundreds of small fires. Fires that represent families with no food security, income, or any other way of living.As we continued our project, it was heartening to see Mahandry’s eyes opened to the world that was right before him. He went from focusing on a large mammalian species, to living in the minute species. The same way we see Rochester school kids becoming connected to nature through our One Cubic Foot ZooMobile, we saw Mahandry’s appreciation for the interconnectedness of it all.

What made this more powerful was the place where this transformation was happening – Ranomafana National Park. A young park – only 25 years old – Ranomafana is also a young forest.  Most of the park is reforested and regenerated. And in a short 25 years, we were finding some amazing biodiversity already returning and residing in the forest. As the week went on, Mahandry told me his true dream.

He told me that if he could, he would work on reforesting. He didn’t know the way to do that. We talked a lot. Mahandry said he dreamed of coming to the United States. He dreamed of becoming a director of a National Park. I am not sure how much Mahandry dreamed before, or how many times he actually shared that dream with anyone.Fast forward a year, and Mahandry was spending time at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History and at Seneca Park Zoo, receiving training and seeing conservation from “our side of things”.  While he was here, Pat Wright, the Zoo’s partner from Stony Brook University, offered Mahandry a supporting role in the reforestation project happening out of the field station we stayed at in Madagascar.

In February of this year, through support from Seneca Park Zoo Society and our Docents, Mahandry traveled the same trip I had taken a year and a half ago. Through the barren, but beautiful landscape from Antananarivo south to Ranomafana. Through countless subsistence farms, towns with no electricity, and hundreds of small fires.  This trip was different though, as Mahandry was on his way to begin reforesting this landscape.

In the short two-months he has been on the job, Mahandry has moved from training to action. Just a few weeks ago, he set out on a week-long excursion to assess the nurseries in the area as well as to search for ideal trees to propagate. On this first trip, Mahandry’s project planted 3,000 trees. Mahandry has begun to give a new generation of Malagasy kids the same experience I had as a child.  And I am incredibly proud to know that Seneca Park Zoo had a role in that experience.– Tom Snyder, Director of Programming and Conservation Action