The baboons’ favorite popsicle flavor is berry. The lions’ is pork, or maybe chicken.
As Pennsylvania’s summers grow consistently hotter, local zoos such as the Lake Tobias Wildlife Park in Halifax are putting in extra legwork to make sure the animals stay comfortable – although it may be the humans that are more of a concern.
“We’re definitely seeing heat as an issue,” Jan Tobias-Kieffer, the park’s marketing and public relations director, said during yet another 90-plus degree August day at her family’s zoological preserve.
Open to the public since 1965, Lake Tobias’ strategies for keeping its animals comfortable in the heat haven’t changed much, although they may be employed more often. Aside from extra water and shade, frozen treats are a big hit – both for the animals who need them to cool down, and for spectators.
Despite the sweltering heat, dozens of park-goers watched with baited breath Tuesday as the park’s tigers furiously licked a whole frozen chicken, one of many bits of meat that curator and general manager Ern Tobias sources from the leftovers of farms and butchers’ shops.
“When it starts getting into the 90s like this we have to get ahead of it,” Tobias said, prepping stocks of meat popsicles and ice blocks full of fruits for the non-carnivores.
Tobias doesn’t keep an exact count, but his sense is that the legwork involved for himself and his staff has increased along with Pennsylvania’s summertime temperatures.
“You do whatever you’ve got to do to make it bearable for the animals,” he said.
Such work isn’t exclusive to Lake Tobias – lots of ice and frozen foods are also a staple at Hershey’s ZooAmerica, according to park spokesperson Amanda Polyak.
As with many places around the globe, the Harrisburg region has gotten demonstrably hotter in recent years. A PennLive analysis of temperature data revealed a marked increase in the number of 90-plus-degree days in a given summer, with the frequency of such extreme heat in the past three years being roughly double what it was back in the 1970s and 1980s.
Many zoo animals are well-equipped to handle it, however, especially those which are native to hot climates. The dryness of some Pennsylvania summers is more of an issue for some, such as the park’s rare Aldabra giant tortoise, whom park staff routinely mist down with fresh water and keep a close eye on when the weather gets as hot as it has been, Tobias-Kieffer said.
The park has also had to install and fill up water barrels for its zebra and deer, as the stream they usually drink from has dried up in places. This has happened before, Tobias said, but the dry spells seem to be lasting longer in recent years.
However, it may very well be the humans who have the biggest problems with the warming climate. Heat definitely reduces park attendance, Tobias-Kieffer said, and the signature attraction – a safari tour through the park’s 150-plus acres of grazing land in an open-topped bus – can be taxing under the hot sun. As the temperatures climb, the number of visitors needing help for heat exhaustion inevitably does as well.
“People don’t seek out the shade like the animals do,” Tobias observed.
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