The Great Bend Zoological Society will have its Annual Meeting at 6 p.m., Monday, Nov. 10 at the Great Bend Brit Spaugh Zoo and Raptor Center.
Dixie Divis, Zoo Society secretary, said new memberships and renewals will be available. The public is invited to come for “an evening of information and fun.”
There will be lots of door prizes donated by businesses and organizations around town, and hamburgers will be served to the first 100 people, Zoo Director Scott Gregory said.
“We will also have a sneak preview of a new serval,” Gregory said. Servals are medium-sized African cats with golden colored coats and bold black spots. “Of course, the new serval will be in quarantine, but for members who attend our Annual Meeting on Monday night, they will get a sneak peak!”
Gregory will travel to the Omaha Zoo this weekend to pick up the animal. There are plans to breed this cat with the zoo’s other serval, which was obtained from New Zealand in 2013. The exhibit for the servals will be completed in approximately two weeks, but quarantine for a new animal can be a month or longer.
Zoo Society membership offers several benefits and helps the zoo. The society was responsible for last month’s program featuring Jungle Jack Hanna at Barton Community College. Gregory said the event was a phenomenal success. “They raised around $20,000, which is the largest in Zoo Society History. That money will be earmarked for zoo projects to aid in AZA (American Zoological Association) accreditation.”
In other news, on Oct. 25 the zoo had its largest ever Zoo Boo, with 5,750 people and over 30 organizations participating, Gregory said. Papa Murphy’s pizza raised almost $800 from selling pizza and donated 100 percent of the proceeds to the Zoo Society.