Fargo's Red River Zoo is a Zoo on the Grow

I grew up in a suburb of Chicago for the several years, going to the Brookfield Zoo many times a year. It was a short drive and the best time to go was the winter. The indoor exhibits were closed but the outdoor animals were having the time of their lives.

Lions and tiger and bears having fun. During the hot months of the summer would see them lazing in the shade, but during the winter they would be romping around and playing with each other. We would go, admission during the winter was free, and watch the animals outside and even got to watch then get fed by the keepers.

One visit we talked for awhile with one of the keepers for the bears and they told us we could bring things to feed them as long as they saw what we had brought and they approved. They told us what things to get and we went home with a shopping list for the bears. The next couple of years we would bring bags of apples and carrots and such and help feed the bears.

We moved when I started junior high school and that ended the great visits to the small and personable zoo. Years later I have been back to the zoo, it is huge. They have at least four times the exhibits and use six or seven times the area that they had almost thirty years ago.

That is what the Red River Zoo reminds me so much of. That small zoo that today is struggling to find funding and stay open, but in a few years with some luck will be a large metropolitan zoo that others in the country envy and try to get help from.

They are a small zoo but have some unique and different exhibits that are certain to earn a good reputation in the zoological community. They have many animals that are used to and like the North Dakota climate and have strived to get ones that are unique and different.

No lions and tigers and bears here. Oh, they have one bear but many would not recognize it. They have a red panda bear that is their trademark and mascot. The red panda is a member of the other better known panda or giant panda. You've all heard the problems with mating and the endangered status of the giant panda, well the red panda suffers the same fate.

Red River Zoo

Credit: jeff gedgaud

Copyright: jeff gedgaud