As the weather becomes more unpredictable in Milwaukee, the Milwaukee County Zoo is adapting.
Tracey Dolphin is the director of Animal Management and Health at the Milwaukee County Zoo. She says the zoo, accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA), has emergency plans that they update and rehearse year-round.
To learn more, Lake Effect’s Xcaret Nuñez spoke with Dolphin about how the Milwaukee County Zoo prepares for weather disasters — and how they handled the recent historic flooding.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Before we discuss how the zoo prepares for extreme weather, can you explain how the zoo decides on which animals to bring and exhibit at the Milwaukee County Zoo?
There are many factors that are considered, and it really depends on the species of animal that we are bringing in. So one of the very first things we're going to look at is: Do we have the facility to house that animal? Do we have the staff that can take care of the animal? Do we have the veterinary care? Do we have the diet? All of those are factors that go into whether we will look at bringing an animal in. We also really work with the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, and we look at the entire populations that are housed within the AZA, and we align our collection plan to what is needed. So, if we are going to be bringing in a specific type of bird, we look at: Are they an endangered animal? Are they threatened in the wild? So we look at those standings to see if those would be a great fit for us as well. Then we build our animal collection up from there as well.
Does Milwaukee’s climate ever factor into the decision-making process of bringing new wildlife to the zoo?
Absolutely. So we look at the climate and we look at our facilities to see if we’re able to support [the zoo animals]. So I will just say that our snow leopards and our red pandas have really adapted to cold climates — they do really well in our winters, but we also provide them with air-conditioned indoor habitats in the summer. So, in reverse, when we look at some of our African Hoof Stock — they do really well in summer, and then they are provided warm indoor holdings over winter days, as well. So absolutely, that does come into play, and that's where our facilities will make up for when our weather changes.
When it comes to an extreme weather event, like a flood or a tornado alert, is there a guideline of what to do with each animal?
So we're always monitoring the weather. Of course, severe weather can pop up, but there are lots of times when we are aware of when severe weather is going to come. So let's say a severe thunderstorm is going to come — that may come with an increase in rain or higher winds. And so for all of our animals, we have a plan in place of, if that is going to be forecasted to come through the zoo. what we're going to do for each of them.
So, for instance, if a severe thunderstorm is predicted to come overnight, we'll make sure that our big cats are secured inside overnight. One of our greatest assets to the zoo is all of the trees and the trees within the habitats. But when we're looking at high winds, we also know that limbs can come down, and they can damage the outdoor habitats. We want to ensure that the animals are safe, and so following that plan, we would ensure that the animals are inside overnight.
During the day, if we know that severe weather is coming, our teams have time to prepare, and depending on the level of severity, our animals will have access inside, or the teams will work before the storm is forecasted to be in our area, and they will have brought the animals in as well. So sometimes, it’s a beautiful, sunny day, and all of a sudden, a severe thunderstorm may be coming. So our teams will ensure that not only are the animals safe, but our teams are safe. So we'll bring in animals ahead of time, so that our team is also safe during that period of time.
Do you ever run through live drills to practice these emergency plans?
We do a multitude of live drills to plan that more fall into the range of if we had an animal that would escape from their enclosure. We do severe weather action drills as well. So on a Monday morning, when we're planning a drill, we would say over the radio, “There's a severe weather event coming,” and then all of the zoo [staff] would go through how they would prepare for that, and that includes the animal department in what they would need to go through to prepare the animals for that event that was being forecasted during our drill.
All of our areas also have backup plans. So if something like our heating would go down in our Flamingo building, we have a backup area that we could relocate our flamingos to, and we have that all written out. So we're not trying to figure out in the middle of a crisis what needs to be done, those plans are already documented.
Walk me through a real life example. It’s been over a month since Milwaukee has been hit by this historic flood. It was something unexpected for a lot of people. What was it like for the zoo?
It started off as a nice sunny day, and actually, as we were watching the weather, it looked like it was going to clear up as well, and then we had that line that just kept producing more and more rain… We have night staff zookeepers that are here 24 hours, so they were checking to make sure that the drains were cleared, so that we wouldn't get backed up as well in the animal area.
So the [night staff] were communicating with our day team, just letting them know what was going on. Everybody was in the animal division, and all of our animals were safe and sound. There were a few stalls that got a little wet, and some of the runoff from our substrate went down, because we have a ramp that goes down.
That was really all that happened for us, which we are fortunate about, but we are also very prepared. And we take our cues from “Are we seeing rain build up in an area?” Not just during historic weather events, but regular events too. And if we are seeing that, we look to adjust that, so that we're already getting ahead of anything that may be coming our way.
I'm not sure how you could get ahead of the historic flooding — that was an event that you couldn't really forecast. But we were just lucky that in most of our plans we had already addressed erosion and where water was coming into drains, ahead of it.
