Advertising

Latest Issue


Williamsport Sun: June 17, 1927 – Caring for Memorial Park Zoo No Easy Task

Feeding animals is no problem, if Curtis E. Stroup, Memorial Park Superintendent, may be permitted to say so. But it is more work to prepare a meal for the animals than it is for humans.

Because of their captive lives, they are unable to put the proper variety of natural foods to keep them healthy, and supplying them with other suitable types of foods proves to be a real task.

For example, some of the animals require a supply of certain type of bugs and insects. Regularly as the week rolls along virtually every animal gets its supply of prunes and the animals like them better than the average resident of a boardinghouse. Liver, onions, rice, beef, all kinds of greens, carrots, potatoes, hay, oats, wheat, sunflower seeds are regular entries on the menu. Other foods are supplied when available.

There are now about 40 animals, besides the variety of rare birds at the zoo. They are fed twice a day under the direction of assistant superintendent, C. E. Stroup, whom the animals know as their chef.

Several new additions in the way of animals have appeared at the zoo the past week. Among them a pair of prairie dogs which came from Hutchinson, Kansas. Prairie dogs are not dogs at all but belongs to the marmots. It is a burrowing animal and is very gregarious in its habits. The spot in which it congregates is literally honeycombed with tunnels. There is, however, a kind of order observed in “dog towns”. The animals always leave certain roads or streets in which no burrows are made.