James Bugea
Jim is a dedicated volunteer that helps our Pony Wranglers
as well as our Australian exhibit. He is
a fan of our feather friends – the budgie birds – and does a great job of
helping out the keepers with their care.
Thank YOU Jim for lending a hand and helping support the Zoo!
-
Megan Hudak – Volunteer
Services Manager
What’s
your favorite part of Cheyenne Mountain Zoo?
My favorite animal at the zoo are the
wolves. My favorite area is Australia
(matte!)
How long
have you been a volunteer?
I have been volunteering at the Zoo for
just over a year.
What are
some of the activities that you’ve gotten to help with?
One of my favorite activities I was
involved in was when Thea and Nichole were weighing the wallabies. That was fun
and exciting to see how Thea was catching the wallabies by the tails! She
was good at it. Then at the Big Backyard, it was also weigh day for the
turkeys. Jeanne tried to catch a turkey and the turkey flapped her big wings
and it slapped Jeanne across her face with a loud slap. Jeanne didn't think that
was so funny at the time! Nichole & I took the goats out for a walk one day
and that was cool. So I have enjoyed being entertained for over a year at your
Zoo. Thanks for the memories!
Marissa Young
It’s great to
have Marissa on the Zoo’s volunteer team!
We know we can always count on Marissa to do her best in Aquatics. She has such a positive attitude and I enjoy
seeing Marissa every week. Thank YOU
Marissa for being an awesome volunteer!
- Megan Hudak – Volunteer Services Manager
Favorite zoo animal:
I think it's really amazing that the zoo has a
snow leopard. Considering it was only within the last decade that we were
able to get them on film (Planet Earth series) because they are so elusive, it
is pretty cool that we can see one in person!
How long
have you been a volunteer?
I've volunteered at the zoo for about a year now.
What are
some of the activities that you’ve gotten to help with?
Feeding the hippos is always fun. It's cool to see them
smash a melon in their mouth so easily. Feeding the penguins is also a lot of
fun. They are all such characters and it's always fun to see what is going on
in "penguin world", it's usually such a soap opera with that bunch. I
mostly help with the hippos, beavers, penguins, and sometimes the cranes each
week.
Do you have any funny/good stories about your
volunteering experiences?
One time I was cleaning out the beaver exhibit and
letting Ginger and Duncan roam around in the little back area. As usual, Duncan was content to
sleep the entire time, but Ginger was up and checking things out. They had a
bunch of tree branches to munch on that were ready to be cleared out, so I
moved them out of their exhibit to make room for the new tree branches to be
put in. This was not ok with Ginger, though. Every time I moved something out,
she would go and bring it back into the exhibit. She got her way and had a huge
mixture of old and new branches to munch on for the day!
Just the other day, I got to watch the hippos play in the
snow. I didn't think that hippos would like the snow, but they loved it! Their
favorite thing was to eat the snow. They were very funny, walking around and
scooping up piles of snow just like snow plows!
The zoo would surely not look the same as it does today, without the support of our docents. Many of the educational opportunities at the zoo are a direct result of the Auxiliary’s efforts in starting school group “safaris” (pre-trip programs) and zoo tours, the original Zoo On The Move (ZOOM) program, special event and on-grounds education stations and presenting puppet shows in classrooms out in the community for grades K-2. The docents also played an active role in several of the Zoo’s early marketing campaigns including the “Name the Baby Elephants” contest in which the names for Lucky and Kimba were chosen. They also played an active role in the Zoo’s first capital campaign, Zoo for All Reasons.
As the zoo has grown, so have the ways in which the Auxiliary continues to support the zoo!
In addition to all of the activities listed above, our docents also play integral roles in the renewed ZOOM program, zoo-wide animal enrichment, special animal care efforts such as health or birth observations, and financially and physically support our conservation initiatives. There’s just nothing this group of enthusiastic individuals won’t do! In the last year alone, 106 docents collectively contributed over 15,000 hours of service to the zoo. That’s the equivalent of over seven full-time staff members.
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