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In
this issue:
(To
go directly to a story, click on a blue keyword below):
Ripley Entertainment
looks to start a trend with Denver's Ocean Journey,
and Paramount Parks snaps up a sure thing with Bonfante
Gardens;
SeaWorld
Orlando looks beyond Shamu for its retail stores;
Knoebels
hooks up with a college for a new school groups program, and Camelback's
summer slide meets its waterpark Waterloo;
We welcome
an interactive play center to Great Wolf Lodge
and a Mini-Mouse coaster to Wild Adventures;
We celebrate
Valentines Day with a singles social at New York Aquarium,
a roundup of R-rated programs at America's zoos,
and a report on the attempts to use artificial insemination
for elephants; and,
We see Eric
Minton elevated in stature and expanding his offerings.
For
a printable version of this newsletter,
click here
For
more information on the facilities and organizations featured in
this newsletter, visit our Connections Page.
click here
For
back issues of THE LOOP,
click here
Big
fish story
Pardon
the pun, but a sea change is at hand.
Ripley Entertainment is setting off on an adventure with its proposed
takeover of the bankrupt Ocean Journey Aquarium in Denver, Colorado
(for details, see Extra!
Extra!). However, if the company succeeds in turning the institution
into a profitable venture, look for more such transfers in the future.
“If we can make this work we’ll be out there looking at
other aquariums,” Ripley Entertainment President Bob Masterson
said. “A lot of people would like to find a private sector
solution to a public sector problem. If we can provide that, that’s
great.”
Ripley’s has a good track record with aquariums, earning both
aesthetic and commercial kudos for the facilities the company built
in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, and Gatlinburg, Tennessee. The
Myrtle Beach aquarium became a benchmark design for aquarium operators
and builders, while Gatlinburg’s facility was, at almost 2
million, the top drawing aquarium in North America last year.
Ocean Journey, the first existing aquarium the company has attempted
to purchase, represents a new set of challenges for the Ripley team.
If the bid goes through (it still must gain bankruptcy court approval),
Ripley’s financial stake would not be too burdensome: $4.5
million to purchase the assets and another $8 million to $10 million
in near-future capital improvements, Masterson said. But Ripley
would be under no obligation for Ocean Journey’s outstanding
$63 million debt, of which $57 million is owed to bondholders, $5.7
million is owed the city and county and $335,000 owed to unsecured
creditors.
“It’s going to be hard to overcome hard feelings from
people who lost money when Ocean Journey ran the business,”
Masterson said. “That has nothing to do with us. We’re
just the people coming in salvaging the business that’s in
trouble.” The company has been warmly welcomed by local government
officials and endorsed by the bondholders.
However, Ripley definitely is taking over a fixer-upper. “I
think the exhibtry and theming are excellent, but they are not entertaining,”
Masterson said. “It’s lacking in entertainment value to
keep people coming back. We have to make some changes to do that.”
He feels the aquarium needs a big “wow!” when guests enter
and an even bigger “wow!” when they leave, both of which
are currently lacking. At some point the company may close the aquarium
temporarily to make major enhancements, but for now he wants to
maintain operations.
Ripley’s other two aquariums has relied heavily on changeable
exhibits, spending $500,000 per exhibit “not counting market
costs,” Masterson said, “and then we market the dickens
out of it.” The used exhibits are sitting in a warehouse and
available immediately for insertion at Ocean Journey.
Masterson does not foresee large scale changes in personnel—“Part
of the assets you get are the skills of the people there,”
he said—but Ripley cannot us the 500 volunteers working there
because, unlike Ocean Journey, it is a for-profit venture.
Though not as dynamic as its other two markets, Denver does give
the aquarium a strong enough customer base, Masterson said. “There’s
a lot of tourists in Denver, but they’re not as concentrated
in one area as they are in Myrtle Beach and Gatlinburg.” His
business plan looks to stabilize attendance at 800,000 annually.
“If you look at their numbers the first two years, they did
a million people in the first six months, and in 12 months they
did 1.2 million. The people are there, they didn’t come back.
They did not perceive it as something they needed to come back to
every year.”
If Ripley Entertainment can get people to come back to Ocean Journey
and turn the aquarium industry’s flagship financial failure
into a profitable venture, look to Ripley’s having a ready-made
chain of government-funded aquariums lining up across the land.
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Garden
harvest
The
same day Ocean Journey announced Ripley Entertainment’s bid
for the Denver aquarium, Paramount Parks and Bonfante Gardens announced
the amusement park chain had been contracted to manage the Gilroy,
California, theme park (see Extra!
Extra!). Combined, both stories suggest the consolidation trend
is continuing in the amusement industry.
Bonfante Gardens, being the unique type of theme park that it is—one
based on horticulture and skewed decisively to families with young
children and to senior citizens—is a unique situation, however.
Over-invested and yet undercapitalized, the park began looking for
a management arrangement toward the end of last season. Bonfante
officials approached Paramount Parks.
The terms of the agreement were not released, but Paramount officials
stressed that the contract is strictly a management one. The chain
therefore is taking little, if any, risk in operating the park.
It will be managed by the Paramount’s Great America management
and marketing team, which also has the company’s Star Trek:
The Experience in Las Vegas under its umbrella. As for future investment
in the park, Paramount Parks will recommend capital improvements
and other development options to Bonfante’s board of directors,
but any decision on such recommendations will be strictly in the
hands of the board.
Meanwhile, Paramount Parks can use Bonfante Gardens to add value
to the one property in its chain that continues to slump, Great
America in nearby Santa Clara. The company is touting the arrangement
as providing “excellent cross-marketing” opportunities.
Read into that combo passes and second-day rates along with shared
advertising. Even if that doesn’t surge attendance at Great
America, it will likely drive more traffic to Bonfante.
One of the reasons both parks have suffered in attendance is the
economic conditions of the San Francisco Bay Area, which has borne
the greatest brunt of the current nationwide recession. No one questions
the value of both properties, especially Bonfante Gardens, universally
regarded as perhaps the most beautiful theme park in the world;
but the economic environment of the region has not changed. Paramount
Parks is just now putting together its business plan for Bonfante’s
operations, so exactly how the company plans to attract enough attendance
to justify the park’s investment value, and whether the new
managers can even do that, remains to be seen.
What is certain is that it won't hurt Paramount Parks to try.
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My
new jacket gives SeaWorld an unlikely promotion. Photo by Donna
Alley.
Shop
therapy
Genuine
black leather suede. Quilted lining. Perfect fit. A great price
for a Harrison & Tailor jacket, regularly $99.99 on sale for
$59.99. And no Shamu.
Not that I have anything against Shamu, but on a cold day at SeaWorld
in Orlando, Florida, I just needed something to keep me warm. In
the park’s souvenir shops I found this jacket which has become
my wear of choice for social events back home. Shamu is getting
just as much mileage from it even without his portrait embroidered
on the chest, sleeve or back because everybody wants to know where
I got such a fine jacket. And what a price!
“It’s the unexpected, and then it’s the price,”
said Bob Podrasky, vice president of merchandise for SeaWorld Orlando.
“From my perspective it’s part of the entertainment experience
people have when they’re in the park, it’s part of that
unexpected entertainment. And it drives impulse sales in the park.”
My new jacket is an example of a new strategy Podrasky brought to
SeaWorld when he moved to the park a year ago after 25 years at
Busch Gardens in Williamsburg, Virginia. “The market used to
thrive on tourists. You took your name and you put it on everything
to satisfy the tourist market,” he said. “The market has
shifted, and none of us in Orlando is getting a lot of the foreign
international market we’d like to get; we’re all getting
more and more of the local and nearby market. We’re getting
a lot of repeat visits, we’re selling a lot of season passes.”
Those customers are not shopping for Shamu gear. But they are shopping.
So Podrasky has his buying teams focusing on developing products
exclusive to SeaWorld but not necessarily bearing the park logo.
Podrasky himself just returned from Ireland which resulted in contracts
that “are really stepping out of the box for a theme park,”
he said. Fine china manufacturer Royal Tara is making a table top
collection for SeaWorld, with place setting, condiment dishes and
giftware. “It will not carry our name, but the design brings
a SeaWorld theme into the product.”
SeaWorld and Discovery Cove shops will be selling two Waterford
Crystal items—a pineapple vase and an apprentice’s bowl—unavailable
anywhere else in the United States. Podrasky has commissioned artists
to develop marine life paintings for the parks to sell. His buyers
are searching for top-line giftware and apparel to offer in its
boutiques where he will “drive the price down to a point that’s
a value for our guest.”
“We haven’t eliminated the Shamu and the dolphin; that’s
an important thing we do,” he said, but “we’ve scaled
down the number of shops that have that product.”
Such a strategy worked for Podrasky at Busch, he said. “I wouldn’t
be here if it didn’t work.” It also better positions SeaWorld
to prosper in the new world that is the Orlando market by putting
the park’s stores on the shopping conscience of the local population.
“It brings people back again and again,” Podrasky said.
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Accelerated
learning
Using
an amusement park as a classroom or science laboratory is standard
practice. Using an amusement park as something similar to an extension
course; well, that is what sets Knoebels Groves Amusement Resort’s
new partnership with Bloomsburg University apart.
“We’ve
always wanted to have a science and physics program, as a lot of
parks have,” said Joe Muscato, marketing director at the Elysburg,
Pennsylvania, park. “We wanted to do a couple of things differently.”
Muscato went so far as to track down any science class that visited
the park and solicit the teachers for advice. “We were always
looking for someone to partner up with us, a group of teachers or
a college.”
The partner called Muscato “clear out of the blue,” he
said: Emeric Schultz, a professor at Bloomsburg University in nearby
Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, and director of the university’s
Mathematics and Science Learning Center. The center runs a two-week
summer camp for kids and last summer Schultz asked Knoebels to host
an outing.
The lesson plan had the campers build models of a swing ride, boom
ride and roller coaster with K’NEX construction toys, then
they put motion detectors and small accelerometers on the models
to measure distance velocity and acceleration. After studying the
physical forces on the toys, the campers did the same on the real
rides at Knoebels, the kids wearing accelerometers duct taped to
their shoulders and wired to belly packs. Coming off the ride, the
students downloaded the information into Texas Instruments Computer-Based
Learning units which they then took back to the camp for further
study.
“There’s great physics happening in amusement parks,”
Schultz said. “It’s interesting, it’s fun. I think
they really make the connection between the model they’re building
and actually experiencing the ride.”
The success of that outing led Schultz and his colleagues, with
Knoebels' support, to develop a similar program that middle and
high school teachers could incorporate into their own classes. The
Learning Center has purchased more Computer-Based Learning units
that teachers at local schools can sign out. Knoebels is marketing
the program as a turnkey unit schools can incorporate into their
school picnics.
“This is the kind of thing Bloomsburg and Knoebels can offer
support for, but teachers can develop it for their particular classes
individually,” Muscato said. “And we can offer it over
more dates.” Knoebels’ support includes, at least, priority
queuing at the rides and, on request, instruction from staff engineers.
Schultz considers Knoebels the perfect laboratory beyond having
the rides that parallel the models the students build. “It’s
a nice setting. You can get off a ride and set up shop on a bench
to download information.”
The program allows Knoebels to offer more incentive for schools
to schedule their picnics at the park. “We’ve always had
eight tours (of the park’s Mine Museum, the waterpark and other
topical tours),” Muscato said. “This has more substance.
There’s more science going on here. Somewhere along the way,
some of these kids are going to get hooked on the science of amusement
parks, and that could be valuable later. At minimal expense, you’re
able to give something back, and that’s always a good thing,
too.”
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A
longtime summer pastime has given way to a new type of slide at
Camelbeach. Photo courtesy of Camelback Ski Resort.
Sliding
into prosperity
The
two pieces of news came three weeks apart but, taken together, they
summarize a five-year transition.
On Wednesday, Camelbeach Waterpark on Camelback Ski Resort in Tannersville,
Pennsylvania, announced installation of a three-slide complex for
the 2003 season (see Extra!
Extra!). On January 22, the resort had announced it was dismantling
its Alpine Slide. Opened in 1977, the 3,200-foot-long slide descending
from near the top of Camelback was one of the first such attractions
to open in North America.
When it opened, it represented the major reason to visit the resort
in the summer. But in 1998, Camelback Ski Corporation opened a small
waterpark. That waterpark has consistently grown in attendance and
expanded in size. By removing the Alpine Slide—indeed, in placing
the new speed slide complex on land occupied by the Alpine Slide—Camelback
is acknowledging that it no longer should be considered a ski resort
with a waterpark.
The opposite may soon be true. Now drawing about 300,000 guests
per summer, and with an annual growth rate consistently hovering
around 30 percent, the waterpark will soon outdraw the winter business,
said Dave Johnson, assistant director of sales and marketing. In
fact, buried low in this week’s press release announcing the
water slide complex was more relevant news pertaining to the state
of Camelbeach: in addition to the slides the waterpark this year
is adding lounge areas, widening walkways, making food stand improvements
and expanding rest rooms.
“We’re facing growing pains now and trying to keep ahead
of the crowds,” Johnson said. “The crowds haven’t
overwhelmed us, yet. But we can think a little more long-term now
that we know we can stick around.”
Announcement of the Alpine Slide’s demise drew some complaints
on the resort’s Internet message board, but no substantial
outcry, Johnson said. Besides, the park knew the slide’s popularity
was slipping because it had been closely tracking usage, starting
with bar-coded wristbands in 2000. The wristband, part of admission
to the waterpark, allowed up to five free rides on the Alpine Slide.
“Less than half of the people even rode it one time,”
Johnson said. “So that pointed out that this is no longer the
reason people are coming here.” And that was a season before
Camelbeach even had its wave pool.
The past two years the park has been charging extra for riding the
Alpine Slide, and guests had to go through the waterpark gate (and
pay at least the $10.95 spectator ticket) to get to the slide. Though
the park stopped actively marketing the slide, some guests paid
the price to ride it. But not enough to get in the way of the waterpark’s
expansion.
“We probably could have found other places to put something,
but the Alpine Slide had just completed its 26th year, so it was
nearing the end of its life span,” Johnson said. “Was
it worth it to maintain this ride that’s losing popularity
year after year, or better to put that land to use in something
that’s seeing 30 percent growth?”
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Eric's
Turn
Keep
it in Contexts
Maya Angelou. Dave Barry. Eric Minton.
That’s good company I’m keeping. The people I just listed
are three of the writers included in a college textbook published
in December, Rhetorical Contexts: Readings for Writers by
Suzanne Strobeck Webb and Lou Ann Thompson (Longman Publishers,
New York). The editors, both of Texas Woman’s University, start
the book with five chapters about the writing process, then use
a series of published articles and essays for discussion on writing
techniques and effectiveness.
Their very first example is “Thrills and Chills,” an article
on the designers of roller coasters and haunted houses I wrote on
assignment for Psychology Today in 1999. The article leads
off Webb’s and Thompson’s chapter on “Reporting and
Recording,” and they particularly point to my use of quotations
from different individuals and my using “elements of humor.”
The book includes a wide range of essayists, from Ronald Reagan
to Hillary Clinton, from Malcolm X to Mike Royko. One of my own
journalism heroes is included, John Hockenberry. His article “An
American in Albania” comes right after mine. In total, the
book features 54 examples from 53 writers. The one author who is
exemplified twice in the book is, um, me.
Actually, the article “Scaring Up Business” was a companion
piece to my “Thrills and Chills” article in that Psychology
Today issue, but Webb and Thompson place it in a separate chapter,
“Explaining and Interpreting.” In introducing the second
article they acknowledge its singular status as the book’s
only double entry from a single writer. “How can one author
write two such different essays on the same topic?” they ask
the student reader in their introduction.
In addition to grouping the articles in contextual chapter headings,
the editors index all the examples by “thematic contents.”
My two articles, individually or together, show up as examples of
“Arts and Entertainment,” “Business,” “Humor,”
“Science and Technology” and “Society and Culture.”
One mark of my career as a freelance writer always has been the
diversity of my work.
I don’t mention all this merely to toot my own horn. I mention
this to link you to a new web site that toots my own horn, www.ericminton.com.
Now that we have THE LOOP on a successful trajectory and the Amusement
Today alliance is firm, Minton Enterprises is dusting off its
original core business, freelance writing and editing. We are, in
fact, expanding that business to include public relations writing,
from press releases and brochure copy to books, scripts and guides.
You can find descriptions of all we have to offer plus published
examples of many of my articles, including the two used in Rhetorical
Contexts, at www.ericminton.com.
Now that I’m featured in a writing textbook, perhaps I should
consider teaching writing, too. Hmmmm. . .
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Volume
3, No. 3. FEBRUARY 14, 2003
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Insurer
in VertiGo collapse sues Cedar Fair
Batman-themed
raft ride heads to Maryland park
Six
Flags plans seven new rides for Montreal park
Disney
parks report attendance rise
Camelbeach
getting triple speed slide complex
Memphis
Zoo names new president
Rare
sloth bear cub dies at Woodland Park Zoo
Six
Flags AstroWorld gets first S&S Swatter
Cedar
Fair surges to record revenues
Chicago
Six Flags announces Superman coaster
Dracula
park location chosen
Brighton
Pier rides destroyed in fire
Interactive
"highway" routing through Water Country USA
Great
Escape brings Opryland coaster back to life
Ripley's
purchases Colorado aquarium
Paramount
takes over Bonfante operations
Six
Flags St. Louis to get giant roundup
Shedd
Aquarium named Chicago's top draw
For
these stories,
click Extra! Extra!
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New
Arrivals
Families
found a berry good time in Great Wolf's new Woods. Photo courtesy
of Great Wolf Lodge.
It’s
interactive play!
Great Wolf Lodge in Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin, announces the arrival
of Wiley’s Woods, February 7, 2003. Measurements: 20,000
square feet (1,858 square meters), four stories high, 65 interactive
electronic game stations, four slides, six air guns, 25,000 foam
“berries,” birthday party room, food stand with Pizza
Hut franchise, and a 20-unit arcade area. Delivered by Creative
Kingdoms and SCS Interactive.
When it comes to competition among the resort lodges in the Wisconsin
Dells, operators use two strategies: outdistance your rivals or
create a whole new race. Great Wolf did a bit of both with Wiley’s
Woods, the second resort in the area to install a foam ball
play center in the past year, but the first to give foam ball play
an interactive game format. Lodge General Manager Curtis Brown describes
as “a 20,000-square-foot live video game, and you’re the
Mario inside the video game.”
This is the second installation of such an interactive game concept
created by Creative Kingdoms and SCS after Stone Mountain Park in
Atlanta, Georgia, debuted the concept with The Barn (THE
LOOP, November 30, 2001). This version has more interactivity
in its game stations, uses a tree as its centerpiece and, rather
than varieties of fruit, depicts the foam balls as berries (red,
purple, blue, green, orange and yellow).
Players with electronic score-keeping wrist bands move from station
to station accomplishing tasks to earn points. The higher the players
go—physically, in this case—the greater the value of the
play stations. Along the way they must withstand the distractions
of balls dumping every 15 minutes from a basket hanging in the tree
above the central play area, and other players firing balls from
air guns. “(Players) get hit and that diverts them from the
game because they have to retaliate,” Brown said.
Scores are posted on a scoreboard placed on the wall of the tree
house and also are broadcast on the resort’s in-room televisions.
“You can imagine little Michael getting in at night, seeing
the scores and saying, ‘Who’s this Kevin that beat my
score?’ and going back the next day to play again,” Brown
said. For lodge guests, who can play in Wiley’s Woods at no
additional charge, the new play area has served as a happy supplement
to Great Wolf’s indoor waterpark. “Certain times of the
day you don’t want to go into the waterpark, like the two hours
before dinner,” Brown said, relating guest comments he’s
received since the Woods’ opening. “This is a great alternative.”
The new center also represents an alternative revenue source—and
marketing mechanism—for the lodge itself. Great Wolf, departing
from its traditional posture, is opening Wiley’s Woods
to the general public, charging from $5.95 to $8.95 per person for
admission. “We saw the opportunity for exposure,” Brown
said. “Guests (at other resorts) come over to see it and will
say, ‘Next time we need to stay here.’”
Great Wolf prompted plenty of exposure with the grand opening of
Wiley’s Woods. For the Friday ribbon cutting, the state’s
secretary of tourism was on hand along with about 150 invited VIPs
and about 200 children from local schools, who served as the inaugural
players. Press coverage is ongoing: several local network affiliates
are scheduling live broadcasts from Wiley’s Woods for
their morning shows, and a couple of radio stations already have
broadcast from the play center.
“The uniqueness of it,” Brown said as explanation of the
media’s interests. “And, as it was told to me by a guest,
we truly found the meaning of family fun.”
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It’s
a family coaster!
Wild Adventures Theme Park in Valdosta, Georgia, announces the arrival
of Fiesta Express, January 1, 2003. Measurements: eight feet
high (2.5 meters), 262-foot long track (80 meters), 2,653-square-foot
footprint (246 square meters), 16 passengers. Delivered by Zamperla.
The opening of Zamperla’s first Mini Mouse—indeed, this
was the floor model at the IAAPA Trade Show in November—got
a little lost in the snow. Wild Adventures did not provide a gala
event for the new family coaster. “We just opened it up and
let the kids ride,” said Sara Sumner, public relations coordinator.
The new ride immediately drew attention, to be sure, including from
Sumner who brought her own 4-year-old son back the next weekend
to ride Fiesta Express. However, the park in Georgia’s
southernmost city was just beginning an event called Snow Days.
Lasting throughout the month of January, the park opened up an ice
rink and trucked in enough ice to build a tobogganing hill and a
snowy playground. “Kids who had never seen snow before could
have some real Northern-like fun,” Sumner said. “The little
roller coaster was lost in the shuffle.”
Mother Nature even lent a hand. New Year’s Day temperatures
when the coaster first went into operation were cold, Sumner said,
and on January 18 Valdosta set 10-year lows as the thermometer dipped
to 12 Degrees Fahrenheit (minus 11 Celsius). So, while the park
used 60,000 pounds (27,215.5 kilograms) of ice to build the toboggan
hill and 15,000 pounds (6,803 kilograms) a day to create snow for
the festival, “we didn’t go through half as much ice as
we thought we were going to go through,” Sumner said.
Through it all, the cold and snow, Fiesta Express was drawing
consistent traffic, she said. “It’s an excellent opportunity
to introduce kids to the fine art of coaster riding,” the Ohio
native said.
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Valentines
for zoos
Breeding
a social class
Marine animals use a number of different strategies to find the
right mate: different colors, different sounds, different swimming
patterns, and, for horseshoe crabs, different mates. If a grouper
can’t find the right mate of the opposite sex, it can simply
change its own sex.
Humans? Well, one mating strategy is to attend singles-only social
mixers, like the one the New York Aquarium in New York City is hosting
Saturday night in honor of Valentine’s Day. Called “Sex
in the Sea: A Single’s Mixer,” the evening includes an
ice breaker, a tour of the aquarium focusing on the mating rituals
of various sea animals, and a nightcap of wine, cheese and, that
essential nectar of love (for a certain group of people), beer.
“We do programs day and night for all segments of our community,
for families and school teachers and school groups,” said Merryl
Kafka, the aquarium’s curator of education. “I thought,
‘You know, what we are really missing is the singles scene.’”
Pegged to the aquarium’s educational mission—this being
a lesson in the reproductive methods of marine life and the challenges
they face in the overexploited seas—Kafka settled on providing
singles “a meeting opportunity, not a breeding opportunity.
Cultural institutions are where social engagements ought to occur.
It’s an informal, relaxed social setting.”
She will make sure the people who attend to at least meet each other.
Upon arriving each participant will receive a small canister containing
a scent, and they will have to mingle to pair up with another person
holding that scent.
This being the first attempt at such a program for the aquarium,
“Sex In The Sea” had 22 registrants at the start of the
week, though Kafka said registration was growing. The problem is
that the majority of registrants were women. “Whenever there
are singles functions they are usually dominated by women,”
Kafka said. “Yet, men are supposed to be the cruisers.”
So, Kafka went cruising for “a few good men” at New York’s
precinct stations and firehouses, offering 20 percent discounts
to firefighters and police officers. This strategy forced her to
alter the evening’s wine and cheese menu, however. “Having
been to three firehouses they told me they like beer,” Kafka
said. “They said they wouldn’t come if there wasn’t
any beer.”
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A
memorable date
Today is Valentine's Day. Over the course of a year, amusement and
attractions venues will seize on suitable holidays for marketing
opportunities and special promotions. In North America, today belongs
to the zoos, not just because zoos, unlike most amusement parks
and waterparks, are open today, but because the theme of this holiday
dovetails nicely with a key purpose of zoos. Valentine’s Day
is all about romancing your mate, zoos are all about replenishing
species. Same thing.
The one element that makes the day’s theme and the zoos’
purpose the “same thing” is—let’s speak frankly
here—procreation. So, many zoos, those paragons of childhood
experiences, those most family-oriented of any community’s
cultural institution, use Valentine’s Day as a chance to get
a little randy, to earn R ratings rather than G or even PG.
On this day, zoos are blessed with a convergence of situations they
don’t get with other holidays. One, mating season for many
species is just getting under way, so the holiday’s timing
and subject matter are in sync. Two, zoos deal with breeding programs
daily, and with Valentine’s Day they can highlight that mission
and its accompanying educational mission for the public. Three,
by couching the topic in a bit of lasciviousness and adding some
libations, zoos can use the holiday as a promotional outreach to
a demographic segment seldom included in zoo’s standard market
base, namely adults without children.
Here follows a few Valentine’s Day programs propagated by zoos
around the country.
Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Gardens, Cincinnati, Ohio—What
started five years ago as primarily a scientific video presentation—sort
of the animal equivalent of pornographic films—has evolved
into a pun-filled evening class on mating rituals. Rather than using
graphic images, “Experience the Wild Side of Love” uses
audience participation exercises to compare animal mating rituals
to the kinds of behaviors humans engage in (gifts, dancing, subtle
flirting, blatant flirting, building the perfect seduction scene).
“We heavily anthropomorphize in this program,” said Dan
Marsh, the zoo’s assistant director of education. “In
this setting we have a little license to do that.”
One of Marsh’s exercises asks the men and women to create offerings
for their loved ones using such ingredients as ice cream, bananas,
nuts, whipped cream and maraschino cherries. Sounds like a banana
split, but, said Marsh, “You would not believe what they come
up with. Interestingly, the male offerings are often phallic, and
the female offerings are usually mammaric in nature. While I think
the women get it, I don’t think the guys get it.”
The class, which usually draws about 60 people, is open to couples
age 16 and over; but champagne is available only for those 21 and
older. Often, one mate will use the class as a surprise Valentine’s
Day gift. “We see a lot of bewildered looking men and women
being driven into the zoo,” Marsh said. “You have to be
careful when you call people back and leave a message on the phone
because you could spoil the surprise.”
($18 per couple members, $22 per couple nonmembers.)
Columbus Zoo and Aquarium, Columbus, Ohio—Though the
zoo calls its annual program “The Mating Game,” “You’re
not actually going to see mating,” said Lisa Beebe, special
events coordinator. “It has happened in the past that things
have occurred, but that’s not our goal.” The seven-year
program usually sells out the 80 spaces available in each of two
sessions. Limited to adults 21 and older, the group starts with
a champagne brunch and then takes behind the-scenes tours meeting
keepers. This year the program is adding a scavenger hunt with all
questions related to mating.
The program attracts a large number of veterinary students from
Ohio State University, but it also has served the purpose of building
a market among “a group of people who don’t normally come
here,” Beebe said. “They’re leaving here excited
about the zoo. They think it’s a fun place and they’re
telling their friends and family about it.” But not necessarily
their kids.
($40 members,$45 nonmembers.)
Oklahoma City Zoo, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma—Now in its
third year, “Romancing the Zoo” is “picking up steam
as we go each year,” said Public Relations Manager Tara Henson.
The heart of the event is a candlelight, table-clothed catered dinner
and dance in the zoo’s new food court. Before the guests get
there, they have a couple of icebreaker games to play.
First up is the Courtship Charades where, by luck of the draw, contestants
must emulate mating rituals of certain species, like a whale’s
song or a prairie chicken’s dance. Then comes the Zoolywed
Game in which four couples are queried about their knowledge of
each other, but the questions are all related to animals’ mating
behaviors. Sample question: “Which display of affection would
your partner find most attractive?” Sample answer: “biting
the neck like a leopard.” Sample contestant: do we really want
to know?
Henson said the event draws 60 to 70 people. “It’s still
growing, but we don’t want it to get too big. We want to keep
it intimate.” She also noticed that people usually book late.
“It seems like Valentine’s Day is a last-minute holiday
when people decide what to do,” she said. The event is also
a favorite for the media, and not just to cover. This year one of
the CBS affiliate reporters purchased a ticket.
($90 per couple members, $100 per couple nonmembers.)
San Francisco Zoo, San Francisco, California—The progenitor
of all sex tours is “The Sex Tour,” now in its 15th year.
Penguin keeper Jane Tollini launched the tradition when she put
construction paper hearts in the penguin exhibit for the birds to
use as nesting material, placed a boom box blaring Johnny Mathis
next to the exhibit and invited the media out for a narration of
“As The Penguin Turns,” a soap opera depiction of her
charges. The next year she was leading zebra train tours throughout
the whole zoo talking about the mating habits of all animals.
“It’s very tongue-in-cheek, very anthropomorphic, but
you come away with a lesson in how animals do it,” said Nancy
Chan, the zoo’s public relations director. The tours, usually
expanded out to two weekends to meet demand, can handle 70 people
each twice a day. The tour ends in the South America Tropical Forest
facility for a lecture, champagne and truffles. The tours’
popularity annually attracts national and international media interest;
Chan starts getting calls as early as October from journalists wanting
to book a place on the media tour. Aside from the publicity, The
Sex Tours, with its 18-and-above age restriction, “brings in
audiences who never would have come to the zoo before, the 20-somethings
and a lot of seniors," Chan said. "We fill up the morning
tour with so many seniors.”
It’s fair to say, though, that sex isn’t this tour’s
main draw. “People want to pay to see Jane,” Chan said.
“Every tour Jane has to preface it by saying, ‘If you
think you’re going to see animals mate on this tour, go home
and do it yourself.’” Nevertheless, some serendipitous
moments occur. At one point the tour stops at the children’s
petting zoo for a meet and greet with the goats. On one day the
tour stopped just after two baby goats had been born.
And that’s what it—THE “it”—is all about.
($55 per person.)
South Carolina Aquarium, Charleston, South Carolina—The
aquarium decided this year to forego a mating-focused Valentine’s
Day promotion, but it is not letting the day slip by unnoticed.
The aquarium’s volunteer department put together a list of
the 20-some couples among its volunteer corps and turned the tally
over to Public Relations Manager Angel Passailaigue, who pedaled
the news to the local media. The media, in turn, planned to send
crews to the aquarium today to feature some of these couples.
“This is a very close group,” Passailaigue said. “We
have several staff members who are couples, too.” That would
include herself and Arnold Postell, the aquarium’s head diver
and dive safety officer, who met through their work. Their wedding
date is set in July.
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Rafiki
and Renee share a common AI bond in Toledo, above, while Six Flags
Marine World's elephant training supervisor Steve Johnson helps
prepare Misha for her big moment. Photos
courtesy of the Toledo Zoo and Six Flags Marine World.
Success
breeds success
Romance
is nice, but in zoo-think the end results of romance are what count
most. And so, elephant keepers at Toledo Zoo in Ohio and Six Flags
Marine World in Vallejo, California, try to put the tragedies of
last year behind them as they prepare for new, historic maternities
this spring.
Both zoos are participating in artificial insemination programs.
Last summer, Toledo’s experiment with a first-ever surgically
implanted semen ended in a stillbirth. In October, Marine World’s
artificially inseminated calf died in the birth canal and the mother,
Tika, after carrying the dead fetus for six more weeks, succumbed
to internal infections (the occurrence is not rare in elephants,
which have been known to carry a dead fetus without complications
up to a year after the labor's termination and expel it naturally;
surgically removing the fetus is not a viable option).
Despite these failures, the elephant breeding community still has
high hopes that artificial insemination will help maintain the zoo
population of these animals. First-time mothers, as both Tika and
Toledo’s Rafiki were, have low success rates, a truism for
most species. “I would not have expected us to continue and
not have lost a calf from AI,” said Dennis Schmitt, professor
of animal science at Southwest Missouri State University in Springfield
and America’s leading researcher and practitioner of elephant
AI. “We’ve lost calves in natural breeding, why would
AI be any different? Animals don’t read the book, and everything
never goes as planned.”
What is encouraging over the past year is that AI in and of itself
continues to be successful, as it has been for five elephants (two
Asians and three Africans). Since the first AI pregnancy at Springfield,
Missouri, in November 1998, one more Asian and three African AI
babies have been born. One Asian died last year of a herpes virus,
but the other four are healthy little elephants.
In fact, the program’s success continues at both Toledo and
Marine World. Misha, impregnated by surgical means at Marine World,
is due next month, and Renee at Toledo inseminated by non-surgical
means is due in early May. Other AI pregnancies are proceeding at
Disney’s Animal Kingdom in Orlando, Florida, while Sedgwick
County Zoo in Wichita, Kansas, awaits the results of an AI procedure
from a month ago.
Furthering the optimism is the perfection of surgical insemination.
Previously, AI could only be accomplished using a three-meter (10-foot)
flexible endoscope, a procedure currently only Schmitt’s team
and a veterinary group in Berlin, Germany, can do. Through surgery,
Schmitt can deposit semen directly to the speculum via a 1 1/2-inch
(four-centimeter) incision. The procedure can be accomplished by
trained veterinary staffs anywhere, Schmitt said. The elephant’s
temperament and training determine which procedure is most appropriate.
In development is a third procedure which, if successful, will be
a huge breakthrough: using frozen semen. Currently, AI uses semen
collected from one of three on-call bulls: Dale at Kansas City Zoo
in Missouri, MacLean at Disney’s Animal Kingdom and Bwagi at
Lion Country Safari in Loxahatchee, Florida. Windows of opportunity
are short; the female cycle for elephants is three days. While the
three bulls generally are willing to make a donation at any time,
sometimes the specimens are not worth sending. Those that are must
be transported to the receiving zoo the same day, a costly effort
fraught with pitfalls.
“Frozen semen allows institutions to do it at their convenience;
they can store it and it’s available at the time they need
it,” Schmitt said. The first AI using frozen specimens has
been conducted at the Indianapolis Zoo in Indiana (where the two
first AI African elephants turn 3 years old in March and August
this year) and zoo officials are awaiting the results. So far, the
process can only be used with Africans, whose sperm cells have more
stable membranes than those of Asian elephants.
While AI procedures prove increasingly successful, the end result
is still in doubt and remains so until more research can be done
about elephants in childbirth. Few births in the wild have been
documented, and whereas every birth in captivity is documented,
the research is still scant by nature of the beast. “With a
lot of other species, we’ve seen a lot of births, often once
a year,” said Terry Wolf, wildlife director at Lion Country
Safari who works with Bwagi. “With elephants you’re waiting
two to three to five years to see a calf. You’re working with
a very small population base. You’re working with some animals
that are pregnant for the first time.”
The best store of knowledge in elephant breeding, in fact, comes
from the Ringling Brothers circus, Schmitt said. “The reason
is that many of those cows are having third, fourth and fifth calves.
As we go through more pregnancies, we will be more successful. If
(the elephant) hasn’t had her first, she can’t have her
second or third.”
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