The Fresno Chaffee Zoo provides a unique experience for entertainment, learning, work and relationships.
As one enters through its gates, crowds surround the cages and habitats of various animals. Walking along the exhibits, various smells and sounds meet the visitor’s senses.
In addition to simply viewing animals, the zoo offers entertaining attractions, such as the “Winged Wonders” bird show, which begins at 10:30 a.m. At the show, Ross Laird, father of freshman Tyler, explains information about birds, including their natural flight without clipped wings.
Laird has worked at the Chaffee Zoo for 19 years, and previously worked at the Kansas City Zoo for two years. His interest in birds began when he received an injury, putting him out of work for a year. In his spare time, Laird picked up the hobby.
Due to their proficiency for learning, training the birds is the most enjoyable and interesting part of his job, Laird said. According to Laird, the birds are trained by positive reinforcement. Trainers praise and feed the birds when they do something good, but never give them a negative response.
“The best thing about working with birds is the training; they learn things really fast,” Laird said. “It’s gratifying when the behavior is finally finished, especially the bigger behaviors, like teaching them to fly around the trees.”
During the show, birds occasionally prove themselves to be difficult to handle. Once, Lucky, a red-tailed hawk, went off his usual course of flight and perched himself up in a tree, refusing to come down for about 20 minutes, Laird said.
“Having to sit around and wait when they [the birds] are not doing what they are supposed to is the worst part,” Laird said. “Sometimes they fly somewhere up high; we had to wait four days once to get a bird down.”
Besides having bird shows, other animal exhibits attract Valley residents to the zoo. The zoo’s assistant curator, Harald Mountan, works in the elephant and giraffe exhibits. He claims that the zoo not only serves as a fun experience but offers volunteer work to better understand animals.
“Even in the university, they don’t teach you how to take care of elephants,” Mountan, who holds a degree in animal physiology from the University of California, San Diego, said. “You will know how their kidney works, but you won’t have any idea how to take care of them. Volunteering is the best way to do that.”
The zoo offers summer volunteer positions for students who have an interest in bird training, as well as zoo camp for younger children. Opportunities for people 18 years old and above include such positions as special event volunteers, zookeeper assistants, landscape assistants and Stingray Bay volunteers.
“They [volunteers] get trained to do everything that the paid staff does, including presenting the shows, if they choose to do that,” Laird said. “When they finish with the summer here, they are fully prepared to go do just about anything. They must have lots and lots of patience to work with the birds.”
For more photos, click the “view slideshow” button at the top-right of the page. For volunteer registration and more details, call the zoo at 559.498.5920, or visit the Fresno Chaffee Zoo website. For more information about involvement at the zoo, read the Sept. 11, 2008, article, Zoo camp delivers wildlife education.
In other news, the Fresno Chaffee Zoo is considering expanding into green space of Roeding Park according to the Fresno Bee article, “Expansion of Fresno zoo would mean loss of some green space,” Oct. 26. A map of the expansion can be accessed through the article.
