ZOO FOOD: Keepers at Duluth’s Lake Superior Zoo Try to Replicate What the Animals Would Eat in the Wild, Including Chopped Meat, Frozen Rabbits and Lots of Produce.

By Chris Hamilton

Whether it’s a Siberian tiger at Duluth’s Lake Superior Zoo or your own growling stomach, the anticipation of lunchtime is universal.

At the zoo, the animals know when dinner will be served. The big cats pace, the lemurs get testy and African fruit bats squawk like nervous chickens.

Not too different from Thanksgiving at Grandma’s.

But what’s on the zoo’s menu probably wouldn’t garner a request for second helpings from Uncle Ron — unless he likes meal worms or canned "Primate Diet," which is mostly grain, despite the monkey head pictured on the can.

Every year, the zoo goes through 18,000 pounds of chopped meat; almost 11,000 pounds of frozen rabbits, rats and mice; and more than 22,000 pounds of produce to feed dozens of exotic animals. Recently, the City Council re-approved a $25,000 annual contract for frozen meat and bones from a Nebraska packing plant. The zoo’s total budget for keeping its animals fed is $82,500.

It’s a massive task.

The goal is to come as close as possible to replicating what the animals eat in the wild without busting zoo budgets, interim zoo director Julene Boe said. The Duluth zoo doesn’t have a staff nutritionist, so the keepers rely on common sense, menus prepared by animal breeders, the Association of Zoos and Aquariums or by calling other zoos, she said.

Each animal gets at least one annual vet checkup on site. Diets are adjusted according to changing needs such as pregnancy or old age, keeper Nancy Butler said.

"We’re always learning," she said.

Preparing the dishes probably wouldn’t qualify the zookeepers for guest spots on the "Food Network," but the meals do come with plenty of accoutrements.

The bat food is cooked to simulate the rotten fruit they’re used to eating. The monkeys get hard-boiled eggs mixed into their fruit and vegetables for extra protein.

Snow leopards and other cats get something called Nebraska Brand Chopped Feline Food, which consists of horse meat and beef, soybeans and fish meal.

In the old elephant house behind Polar Shores — where the seals, otters and polar bears live — meals are prepared. Heavy-duty silver buckets are filled with large hunks of salmon, a few pounds of lard and something called "omnivore biscuits" that look a lot like moose droppings — the regular diet of polar bears Bubba and Berlin.

Open another fridge and see a scene directly out of Peter Cottontail’s nightmares: a freezer packed with rabbits frozen in plastic bread bags.

Rabbits are a staple at the zoo. Mondays and Fridays are even "rabbit day," according to the schedule. The two tigers plow through 100 pounds a week — fur, bones and all.

"It’s good roughage for them," Boe said.

The 17-foot-long python’s frozen rats come from a company called Frozen Rats. The sluggish reptile eats only a few a week. The peregrine falcon chews on quail from a Minnesota game farmer.

The zoo uses as many local food wholesalers as possible, Boe said. Sivertson’s in Superior provides the fresh fish. And some of the food is donated, such as the pizza-sized loaves of foccacia bread from Italian Village that fills one freezer.

In the main building, a desert tortoise’s lunch includes a salad of dandelion greens, sliced apples, grass and worms picked from the zoo’s own 16 acres, topped with a dash of white calcium powder. It’s a nice-looking salad, when it’s not moving.

Keeper Dave Homstad hopped into the turtle cage — unarmed — with plates for Ozzie the tortoise and a few smaller eastern box turtles, one of which is aptly named Helmet.

"They’re not horribly dangerous," Homstad deadpanned.

Visitors can watch some of the feedings in the zoo’s new "Oh Fur Fun!" program, which features daily meal schedules for most animals. However, the big cats and bears are not included, because many of their feedings are done indoors and after the zoo is closed.

When the keepers feed Nemo the lion, they leave the meat in the indoor cage where he spends his evenings, back out, close the door, leave and then let Nemo in.

Earlier this week, a boy on a school tour threw his shoe into Bubba and Berlin’s area. Bubba quickly clutched it in his paws and tore it to shreds in his teeth. Boe was upset and said it won’t be easy getting it away from the 834-pound behemoth.

"This is what we don’t feed our bears," she said. CHRIS HAMILTON

covers Duluth City Hall and neighborhoods. He can be reached weekdays at (218) 279-5502 or on the Internet at chamilton@duluthnews.com.

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Copyright (c) 2006, Duluth News-Tribune, Minn.

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