Snow brought animals inside at Zoo Atlanta
Zoo Atlanta operated with a skeleton crew, with keepers spending the night to ensure adequate staffing.
They brought all animals – 220 species represented — inside heated buildings or protective structures, even the ones with the ability to endure the cold, such as the red panda, because falling branches might allow a means of escape, said Lori Perkins, the vice president of collections.
The flamingos were moved from fresh water because it could freeze and the staff double checked to make sure they had sufficient generators for back-up power for four days in case of an outage. Others critters such as the colony of naked mole rat colony and amphibians and reptiles already live in climate-controlled environments.
Also, regarding species more susceptible to the colds such as gorillas and monkeys, zoo keepers make decisions based on daily temperature readings and wind-chill.
The zoo is stocked with three days’ worth of fresh produce and two weeks’ worth of dry animal feed, officials said.
