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ZooNooz - Oshawa Zoo Newsletter


It was quite the summer up here on the beautiful Oak Ridges More Rain.

I never remember a year where we never had to feed hay! (Why eat hay when there was so much fresh, green grass?)
Our idyllic little creek flowed like a river all summer.
Between the showers we had a fantastic summer!
We had so many nice new people visit our little piece of interactive animal fun.

We almost doubled the memberships from last year!
It really makes you feel good hearing comments like.... "It's so Clean!..."Your animals are so friendly!"... "We were told about you by a friend. I wish that we'd known about you before!"
It's enough to make our heads swell a bit; but not enough to rest on our laurels!
We spent the summer adding to the zoo, ( Playground elephants, a new colourful enclosure, play area for Mister Snuffles, new parrot and Macaw pens for next year, nice new shelters, and some antique farm machinery!)

We improved our ducky and baby animal exhibits to make things even more hands on for the kids.
The constant work had customers who've been members for years saying "Wow".

The toughest part of the year was writing rain cheques all summer.
Our policy of letting customers return for free if the get caught in a storm was taxed to the limit!
One poor family came 3 times before getting past the front gates.
Thanks for the progress this summer is owed to our work guys Dan and Jere, who spent the summer trying to out do each other for creative, affordable, ideas to make the park better.
Our volunteers were onside with the projects, and made sure the guys had the help that they needed to get the jobs done!
When we closed for the season the rush to get everything to winter quarters went smoothly.
Work continued well into late November..And...Yes!.... we have finally finished the winter warm room renovations!

The Budd/Pavone family sponsored the lemurs for a second year. With their generous sponsorship we turned a dull warm room into a white walled, window-filled palace!
If you are thinking large, sunny ,entertaining winter shelter ..... You have the idea!
The incredible kindness that this family has shown our Zoo is very humbling.

Kim brought us back some brochures from Irish zoos on sponsorship programs.
Jeremy has been checking out North American sites.
We would like to introduce a program; but in keeping with our sort of unique way of looking at what a zoo could be, we'd like to make the program a little off the wall, good for the animals and a lot of fun for the participants.
I'll get back to you when we get the wrinkles ironed out.

In about three weeks the whole cycle begins again - a new year.

Our ewes and goats are swollen with next years crop of young, (some expected in early January), and the exciting thing for us is wondering which swollen tummy is going to create the little orphans that would not survive without our help, that will poop all over my house until they are healthy enough to be out in the barns, AND will be the little bottle babies that you and your kids will love and call by name when we open!
With this dark, cold season upon us we really get the chance to enjoy our animals on our own.

Take the time to enjoy your own families - Happy Holidays from all of us!

Alan
http://www.oshawazoo.ca/


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