A Trip to the Zoo

I posted yesterday on one of the sessions from the Farm Financial Standards Council annual meeting.  Last night, we traveled to the Zoo Montana for dinner.  This zoo was in financial difficulty about two years ago and almost closed down.  The zoo has about 70 acres of ground, however, only 25 acres is being currently used for the zoo.  There are plans to fully incorporate the 70 acres over time.

Animals that are native to parts of the world north of the 45th latitude are the primary animals housed at the zoo.  The animals in the zoo included Lynx, Bighorn sheep, Bald Eagles, Wolves, and as you can see in the attached photos, Grizzly bears and Siberian tigers.

There were two new Siberian tigers at the zoo.  They had actually spent most of their life growing up in a zoo in Florida, but their native habitat is northern China, far eastern Russia and North Korea.  The zoo is eager to see how they acclimate to the colder Montana climate.  The one female in the photo liked to pace back and forth right in front of the window and when I took the photo, my camera was less than 6 inches from her face.  These tigers are the largest cats in the world (even larger than a lion).

The Grizzly bears have an interesting story.  Bruno is the larger one (he will hit about 700 pounds in winter) and Ozzie is the smaller one.  Bruno has lived in a zoo all of his life, whereas Ozzie was native to Yellowstone Park, but got into trouble for spending too much time invading tents and grabbing food from visitors to the park.  The choice was to send him to Zoo Montana or euthanize him.  When he showed up to the park, there was concern how the two bears would react when introduced to each other.  Two male alpha bears will attack or try to kill each other.  When Ozzie entered the cage and say Bruno, he promptly passed out.  Bruno then went over and laid on top of Ozzie for about two hours and when Ozzie finally got up; they have been best buds ever since as you can tell from the photo.

Paul Neiffer, CPA