Animal art from the Great Bend Brit Spaugh Zoo animals and Zoo Supervisor/Curator Ashley Burdick will be featured during the Art & Wine Walk on Friday, May 5.
Burdick will share some of her photography featuring animals at the zoo. These are printed on canvas and available for purchase.
There will also be some art by zoo animals, who were encouraged to put paint to canvas in various ways. The animal artists include foxes, bears, the binturong, lemurs, and pigs. The keepers also have poured-paint canvases with animal paw prints.
All proceeds from sales go to the zoo. “The money helps our operating budget as well as the special projects we’ve been working on,” Burdick said.
The animals may not know they are creating art, but painting is a form of cognitive and social enrichment for them, Burdick said. “It allows the animals to engage and participate in a special activity that requires manipulation with their feet or mouth and also allows them to bond with their keepers.”
Bobcats have moved
The zoo’s newest exhibit animals are now visible. The zoo recently acquired two female bobcats, Amora, who is 8 years old, and, Hope, 15. Their exhibit is next to the grizzly bears.
They moved to the outdoor exhibit in mid-April but keepers kept the area slightly blocked off while they settled into their new home.
The bobcats lived at the Milford Nature Center until last year, when they moved to live at the Great Bend Zoo. Orphaned in the wild and unable to survive on their own, they were taken to the nature center as cubs.
According to a recent Facebook post showing the bobcats, “They love to nap on their high platforms and, like all of our cats, love to rub in stinky perfume!”
Other upgrades
It’s spring, and the animals and keepers at the Great Bend Brit Spaugh Zoo are active. The alligators are back on their pond after wintering indoors. The chinchillas recently benefited from an exhibit upgrade that nearly doubled their enclosure size.
The lion-viewing window has been replaced, the bison shade sails are back up and the butterfly garden is ready to go.
“We’re moving from an enclosed butterfly house, where we paid hundreds of dollars every few weeks for butterflies, to an open pollinator area so we can help all types of wild pollinators whose populations are in trouble,” Burdick said. “We’ve already seen several wild species including bees, monarchs, painted ladies and cloudless sulphur butterflies.”
