I first started coming to the zoo when I was a child. I grew up here in Minnesota and my
parents brought me to explore and learn more about animals and I was hooked.
I love coming to the zoo with my mom. My favorite animal is a leopard.
What I love about the Minnesota Zoo is that it's so big. I feel like you get a chance
to really see animals and their habitat instead of just the animals in a confined space.
Usually my favorite exhibit is whatever I'm right next to because I just I love them all.
I love the otters. They swim funny and that's why I like them.
My family and I have been coming here for about 10 years now and I've also been for
the past three years a zoo teen. So it's been a good connection for the last few
years. I've been able to grow up at the zoo until I really just love being here.
We are here every day. This is our job and taking care of these animals and you take it
personally too because you always want to make sure that you're providing that best
management practices for them to keep them happy and healthy here.
I'm doing something that's really important. I feel like I'm making a difference in the world.
If you've got wonder, amazement, delight, you've done your job.
The more you come, the more you experience the zoo, the more you take a sense of ownership.
You know, it becomes, this is my zoo.
Here's a group of people that every day, every day think about our land, our water,
what's going on with the butterflies, what's going on with those honeybees,
what's going on with the moose. And as I might go in and out with my own involvement in
what might be conservation or actual activity or action caring about land and water,
I know that the zoo is always thinking about it.
In Minnesota Zoo, when they decided to do a farm to replace the petting zoo here,
they really did some good research. Farming is several generations removed from our children.
Probably three sometimes. And it gives them, it gives the adults, the grandparents,
the parents a chance to show their children what it was like on the farm.
When the weather is beautiful and you go for a walk, you're not like going from building to building.
You get to be outside, out in nature, and then see exotic animals part of the landscape.
And that is really a special part of Minnesota Zoo.
All of the very naturalistic exhibits, they're just so well done and get you right up close with the animals
like at our Russia's Grizzly Coast exhibit. You really feel a sense of place,
like you're actually there with the animals.
My favorite part is when the kids come up to us as they're leaving and they start telling us about their day.
My favorite exhibit is a penguin exhibit because I love that you feel like you're in a cave with them
and that you can see them on land and playing on the rocks, but then they also dive in the water
and if you put your hand up to the wall, they start swimming around and following your hand.
And I just think it's so fun. You can't not look at them and smile and laugh.
